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

[Wafflz]

Ferram I wanted to start by saying thanks a lot for staying on top of the mod. Unfortunately I have narrowed down another problem I am having to FAR. With a simple rocket using small parts I am getting huge fps drops. With Vsync on and FAR uninstalled I get 60 frames on the launchpad. When i add FAR with the same vehicle on the launchpad my fps drops to 22, and remains low over the course of the launch until I get to orbit. Strangely enough after I decouple the radial SRBs(RT-10s) and they are far enough away my fps jumps up to 30-40s. By the time I reach orbit my frames are back up to around 60. I only have a few other mods including KJR and when I remove those mods the problem remains the same, I believe the issue is related somehow to FAR. Again thanks for this awesome mod!

Also I just realized you updated again to 12.2. This is occuring on 12.1 which included the bugfix for decouplers ejecting at ludicrous speed.

[kanelives]

Version 0.12.1 is out, and the bug is squashed. Basically what was happening was that I was using the vessel's altitude to determine what the atmospheric density was, but that is apparently set to 0 for the first physics frame that it exists. So every part was getting smacked with sea-level atmospheric density on decoupling.

Mea culpa. I should have done more testing; that level of game breaking shouldn't have gotten through. Sorry for that guys.

nah it's cool. i was enjoying the bug for a a bit lol. this screenshot was taken almost immediately as i decoupled

dat velocity.

[Camacha]

If FAR going to change its interface now that tweakables allow each control surface to have its independent steering directions set?

[dgriletz]

Is there a guide to all the variables and how to use the simulator effectively, or can someone help explain it? I've tried researching what I can on my own but am still confused about much of this.

From what I understand..please correct me if I am mistaken on anything

[static Analysis Tab]

cl - How much lift

cd - How much drag

cm - Pitching force up or down. You want this to be negative so the plan naturally noses down.

ld - lift/drag (Best way to use this? what does it tell you exactly?)

[DOTA+Stability Derivatives Tab]

What does DOTA stand for?

Density - Assume this is atmospheric density, and relates to your altitude.

Aircraft Properties

Winged Area - Wing surface area

Scaled Chord - Scaled? Wing distance from front to back

Scaled Span - Distance from root of wing to tips?

Moments of Inertia

Is this the relative torque required to rotate the craft in each plane? i.e, high lxx means it takes more force to roll?

Products of Inertia

confused how/why this one works.

u - "u (lower case) is used for speed of the oncoming flow along the X body axis" -wikipedia

Longitudinal Derivatives

Down Velocity

I think this is..'If your craft is level, and dropped straight down.. what happens?'

Zw - should not accelerate faster the more it falls. Obviously drag should slow it.

Xw - should tend to nose down and accelerate in x direction

Mw - ^nose should drop^

Forward Velocity

What happens due to your airspeed starting from straight and level

Zu - should gradually loose altitude

Xu - should gradually slow down (from drag)

Mu - I don't get this one, or why the sign is not important

Pitch Rate Derivatives

Level craft sitting still. It is given a pitch up motion. What else happens as a result?

Zq - Because of the pitching up, does it gain or loose altitude

Xq - Does it gain or loose speed

Mq - does it pitch up more and more, or does it gradually slow. Should slow.

Pitch Control Derivatives

When you pitch up, what else happens.

What is that symbol?

Z?e - Not totally sure on these. Why should this be negative?

X?e - Why unimportant?

M?e - It you apply pitch up control, obviously you should pitch up more. Makes sense.

Lateral Derivatives

Sideslip Derivatives

If your craft is yaw angled left or right.. Hopefully I've made sense of these.. Seems these three should happen mostly as a result of the vertical stabilizer catching the airflow.

Yb - Wind is coming from the right, plane should translate left.

Lb - Wind is coming from the right, plane should roll left.

Nb - Wind is coming from the right, plane should yaw right.

Roll rate Derivatives

If your plane rolls right..

Yp - If you roll right, plane should translate left. I assume this is because of vertical stabilizer pushing against the air, moving the plane left.

Lp - If your plane is rolling right, it should eventually decelerate rolling right on its own?

Np - Plane rolling right, does yaw right rate increase or decrease I assume that for most planes this will be positive due to vertical stabilizer being top/rear? Why is this value listed as unimportant?

Yaw Rate Derivatives

As plane has yaw right motion.. These values seem to be because of the rear fins catching the wind.

Yr - Should accelerate in y direction (translate right)

Lr - Should roll right.

Nr - Left to it's own devices, the yaw right motion should slow

[sIMULATION]

Please help me understand how to use this.

init u - Initial forward velocity? in m/s? mach?

init w - Initial vertical velocity?

init q - Initial pitch up rate? What values/units?

init 0 - Initial aoa, or intial pitch? In degrees?

End time - How many seconds to run the sim?

dT - No clue!

Thank you for any assistance.

[KerbMav]

@Ferram

You tossed around some fixes for this and that during the last weeks - are they all in the new version now?

[DaMichel]

@Bugger burger: If you're using the new biplane wings, those aren't affected by FAR; Snjo is using his own special type of lifting module for that, so you'll have to bring it up in the Firespitter thread.

I think i just experienced the same issue, but i don't use Firespitter! Only stock parts were on this craft.

It happen when i approached KSC in a SSTO. I got it down to Mach 1.2. Then it seemed to retain it's energy perfectly. Nothing would stop it. I could trade speed for altitude though. Prior to that some parts on the ship exploded for no apparent reason. Eventually the whole craft exploded.

Take a look https://www.dropbox.com/sh/biakqd6iqt19g2d/IChPvO9k4V

I have FAR, JointReinforcement, and some information plugins installed. Using Version 0.12.2 of FAR.

Now i've got so say that before all that happened the craft already had exploded on loading my savegame. I had to use quickload to continue playing this savegame. So probably the craft is fubar to begin with. But just in case this is some bug in FAR i thought i should post it.

[FW Industries]

Noticed a small issue during EVA. Happens on launch pad and in orbit. KSP .23 with just FAR 12.2 and Toolbar.

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at ferram4.FARGlobalControlFlightObject.LateUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

Looks like FARControlSys.ActiveControlSys is null during EVA.

[SSR Kermit]

I just wanted to leave a big thank you to Ferram for creating and maintaining this mod -- it's become a must have for me; upon launching .23 stock I realized I couldn't go back! Credit to bac9 for creating parts that allow me to realize cool and pseudo-realistic aerodynamic designs (VTOL SSTO spaceplanes with anhedral wings that are stable from 0-5 mach!)

It kind of boggles my mind how cool this modding community is and the amazing content its modders are adding.

Thank you Ferram!

[a.g.]

It happen when i approached KSC in a SSTO. I got it down to Mach 1.2. Then it seemed to retain it's energy perfectly. Nothing would stop it. I could trade speed for altitude though. Prior to that some parts on the ship exploded for no apparent reason. Eventually the whole craft exploded.

Take a look https://www.dropbox.com/sh/biakqd6iqt19g2d/IChPvO9k4V

You appear to have negative total drag for some reason, which means that aerodynamic forces would end up speeding the craft up instead of slowing down as they are supposed to.

[Camacha]

ld - lift/drag (Best way to use this? what does it tell you exactly?)

This is usually an indicator for the glide ratio, or glide efficiency. For instance, in gliders this number is typically between 30:1 and 60:1 and is an indicator of how many units horizontal movement an aircraft can do for 1 unit of vertical movement.

In normal language: a glider/aircraft that can do 40:1 moves 40 kilometer forward for every 1 kilometer of height loss. This is without engine input of course, and with minimal losses from steering and such, as those will decrease efficiency. It is a general indicator of how efficient the aircraft moves through the air. It is different from the drag coefficient in that it balances the energy lost to drag against gained lift, actually measuring performance instead of just the air resistance.

I have figured out some of the other ones, but am unsure of quite a few, just like you. I would be very interested to have this described in some detail somewhere, as I find myself wanting to build craft with a little more deliberation. Maybe a community thread to work out all the details what it means and how to effectively apply it to your craft is in order.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Camacha

[DaMichel]

You appear to have negative total drag for some reason, which means that aerodynamic forces would end up speeding the craft up instead of slowing down as they are supposed to.

I noticed the negative sign as well. Should have kept a better eye on it because now i wonder why it didn't keep accelerating the craft. Anyway, i also added the craft file in the dropbox.

[ferram4]

I was unable to reproduce the issue of negative drag, with or without Firespitter. I need more detailed reproduction instructions, since I'm just not seeing it happen anywhere.

[TinfoilChef]

The FAR GUI is not showing in the VAB or flight.

This is with a fresh vanilla install of 0.23 with FAR as the only mod, downloaded fresh a few minutes ago

FerramAerospaceResearch_v0.12.2.zip

I believe this is the relevant portion of output.log:

Non platform assembly: C:\games\KSP 0.23 vanilla\GameData\ModuleManager_1_5.dll (this message is harmless)
Non platform assembly: C:\games\KSP 0.23 vanilla\GameData\FerramAerospaceResearch\Plugins\FerramAerospaceResearch.dll (this message is harmless)
Non platform assembly: C:\games\KSP 0.23 vanilla\GameData\FerramAerospaceResearch\Plugins\ferramGraph.dll (this message is harmless)
AssemblyLoader: Exception loading 'FerramAerospaceResearch': System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: The classes in the module cannot be loaded.

  at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Reflection.Assembly:GetTypes (bool)

  at System.Reflection.Assembly.GetTypes () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at AssemblyLoader.LoadAssemblies () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

Additional information about this exception:

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'ferram4.FARGlobalControlEditorObject' from assembly 'FerramAerospaceResearch, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'ferram4.FARGlobalControlFlightObject' from assembly 'FerramAerospaceResearch, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

[ferram4]

Did you copy over the 000_Toolbar folder? Is KSP in a folder where it has proper permissions?

[TinfoilChef]

Did you copy over the 000_Toolbar folder? Is KSP in a folder where it has proper permissions?

yes to both. on checking I did notice that both the FerramAerospaceResearch and 000_Toolbar directories were marked as "read only". I changed that and tried again. this worked. thanks

[ferram4]

Okay, I think I figured out the negative drag issue. It was an attempt of mine to get around the closed drag of intakes being too high; that will be fixed shortly after I look into some other bugfixes and tweaks.

[Chris_W]

NullReferenceException

at (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.Component:GetComponent (System.Type)

at UnityEngine.Component.GetComponent[FARWingAerodynamicModel] () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ferram4.FARPayloadFairingModule.FindShieldedParts () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at (wrapper delegate-invoke) Callback:invoke_void__this__ ()

at ferram4.FARPartModule.ForceOnVesselPartsChange () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ferram4.FARGlobalControlEditorObject.LateUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

(Filename: Line: -1)

Getting this in VAB, spams the whole ting.

Current version, the last error in my mod setup.. any idea?

Seems to happen when I work on staging.

[ferram4]

So which payload fairings are you using?

[NathanKell]

pfairings, per #kspmodders

[Donziboy2]

Im having some issues with one of my aircraft, to be precise an SSTO I build that can get 77T into orbit with almost no fuel usage using KSP Interstellar Reactor/Thermal Turbojets.

Here is the craft as it is in 0.22... PS dont let the Max Thrust fool you it has over 1000kN on the runway, Mechjeb is broken for these engines.

Here it is in 0.23... And it is totally not flyable after about 9km.

Here is my attempt to fix it, as soon as it leaves the runway it does a backflip. And the 2 orange tanks in the hold don't like backflips.....

Any ideas for fixing this wild mule?

[ferram4]

Try shifting the horizontal tail back a smidge. The thing is, you should focus less on the CoL and more on the static analysis GUI, since that will give you a lot more data about how stable the craft is than that single indicator.

[jcd]

Does this col seem a little far back?

http://imgur.com/ZjYY9iP

[Donziboy2]

Try shifting the horizontal tail back a smidge. The thing is, you should focus less on the CoL and more on the static analysis GUI, since that will give you a lot more data about how stable the craft is than that single indicator.

Does it come with a manual?

[ferram4]

@jcd: Perhaps, but since you've got some ugly biplane stuff going on there, I don't know for sure; the delta wings might be interfering with each other enough that the control surfaces at the back are making a significant portion of the lift. Perhaps you should make it a monoplane and then see what happens.

@Donziboy2: It has a help function, which is the button with a question mark. Read through that; it should help.

[krenshala]

Im having some issues with one of my aircraft, to be precise an SSTO I build that can get 77T into orbit with almost no fuel usage using KSP Interstellar Reactor/Thermal Turbojets.

Here is the craft as it is in 0.22... PS dont let the Max Thrust fool you it has over 1000kN on the runway, Mechjeb is broken for these engines.

http://i.imgur.com/RVHfGos.png

Here it is in 0.23... And it is totally not flyable after about 9km.

http://i.imgur.com/lCmL1tE.png

Here is my attempt to fix it, as soon as it leaves the runway it does a backflip. And the 2 orange tanks in the hold don't like backflips.....

http://i.imgur.com/O5RJvic.png

Any ideas for fixing this wild mule?

I notice the center of thrust is way lower than the center of mass. Have you already tried aligning the two so it thrusts through the CoM instead of under it, causing it to pitch up?