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

[Frank_G]

This update really adds some spice to flying and de-orbiting, especially space planes... Seeing the whole vessels structure getting äh more compact when hitting the lower atmosphere... ouch - Thanks a lot for the update!

[ferram4]

@MAKC: All of the relevant values have been moved out of the config.xml, into the FARAeroData.cfg so that they can be accessed by other mods. The only one that needs to change any more is the attachNodeDiamterFactor, and that's only for RO, so that should be handled on RO's end.

@illectro: It detects when aerodynamic forces should be enough to start causing parts to tear themselves off, at least sort-of based on real-life data. The problem is that the new joints system uses jointDrives (like KJR did and does) to keep the parts from flexing, but the forces applied by jointDrives don't count towards the "breakForce" and "breakTorque" limits of the joint. So in essence, it's very hard to get a structural failure to occur due to anything other than a physics glitch as a result. So FAR works around it instead.

If you're worried about the strengths being too low, there are configs in FARAeroStress.cfg that can be modified to tweak how much parts can take. As it currently stands, if you get a rocket going at 1500 m/s at 5 km it'll be fine so long as it stays pointed prograde, though it falls apart if you go off by any significant amount.

@AndreyATGB: I see why the wings and control surfaces aren't being affected by that setting; I'll upload a fixed version once I get a chance to look at ayana's issue. The control surfaces breaking, well, it depends on what forces are being applied to them and what AoA they're at, since I've never seen that happen myself. Usually it takes getting to ~250 m/s before control surfaces start coming off, and that still only happens at full deflection.

If you're concerned that they're too weak, go into the FARAeroStress.cfg and buff their template up drastically.

@theSpeare: Those first 3 items... that's what you're looking for.

Edited April 27, 2014 by ferram4
Typos

[illectro]

Good to know, I'm about to so something where that might make a difference, I should try and do a before and after comparison.

[AndreyATGB]

Example of what I mean, not on takeoff but I still think it's too much:

[Hodo]

Example of what I mean, not on takeoff but I still think it's too much:

Thats pretty awesome right there. I am running full RO with Pwings and AJE, FAR,DRE and havent had that happen yet. But I also removed KJR because I was having problems with my craft just falling apart before they even launched.

[ferram4]

That's about right. Full control surface deflection at Mach 0.5 - 0.6 at sea level can cause structural failures, particularly since there can be very nasty compressibility effects at those speeds; you might be better off just making the control surfaces larger and use smaller deflections if you need that amount of control at those dynamic pressures.

[AndreyATGB]

Thats pretty awesome right there. I am running full RO with Pwings and AJE, FAR,DRE and havent had that happen yet. But I also removed KJR because I was having problems with my craft just falling apart before they even launched.

I've got the same setup.

That's about right. Full control surface deflection at Mach 0.5 - 0.6 at sea level can cause structural failures, particularly since there can be very nasty compressibility effects at those speeds; you might be better off just making the control surfaces larger and use smaller deflections if you need that amount of control at those dynamic pressures.

Pretty difficult to avoid full deflection with a keyboard . Tapping the buttons works fine though for the most part.

[ferram4]

Try turning on the DCA. It'll scale down control inputs above a certain dynamic pressure, except for trim.

[R0cketC0der]

I love the new update! It just makes flying planes at sea level much more kerbal if you aren't using DCA and/or fine controls.

[smunisto]

Well, that sort of kills the game for people with keyboards, no? I tried with DCA, however at high altitudes DCA makes craft almost non-responsible.

[ferram4]

No it doesn't. I play with only a keyboard, and I'm just fine; you just have to learn to use pulse-width modulation on the controls, which has always been a useful way of getting fine control working.

And if the DCA makes the craft non-responsive, odds are you can get away with turning it off.

[FenrirWolf]

Oooh, interesting update. It's going to make my upcoming aerobreak at Jool even more likely to destroy my mothership XD

[theSpeare]

@theSpeare: Those first 3 items... that's what you're looking for.

Oh damn, I was hoping there was some way we could disable the KSP debug log printouts FAR likes to do. It seems to slow down my scene startups.

[NathanKell]

theSpeare: you could always disable logging in the launcher...

[Azimech]

I love it! Reminds me of flying the IL2 Sturmovik series. Flaps stop working above a certain speed (remain the same angle), landing gear gets ripped off, control surfaces get ripped off and at higher speeds wings tear off. And vibrations increase.

In the future I'll need for every plane to write down stuff like Vne, V3 ...etc.

[Azimech]

pulse-width modulation on the controls

Hilarious way to describe tapping!

[Shania_L]

Try turning on the DCA. It'll scale down control inputs above a certain dynamic pressure, except for trim.

What is DCA?

[ferram4]

@Azimech: But that's what it is. Tapping is just poor man's PWM.

@Shania_L: Dynamic Control Adjustment. Lessens control inputs at high dynamic pressures. Activated by clicking the last button on the Flight GUI.

[Aedile]

Unfortunately the new module manager seems to screw up quite a few mods (for unknown reasons). Does anything special in the new FAR version rely on new MM features?

[ferram4]

Well, the syntax changed a bit, and it allows order-of-operations in applying the configs, which is kinda necessary for a lot of realism overhaul stuff. If you try to run the current module manager config with an old version of module manager, things will likely break.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Unfortunately the new module manager seems to screw up quite a few mods (for unknown reasons).

It shouldn't do. I imagine sarbian and idolilodadabath (I can never spell his username) were very careful not to break backwards compatibility, due to the sheer number of mods that use it. There could be an issue with poorly written cfgs though. Either way, it's something best brought up with MM authors, not ferram.

Also, the update makes use of the :FOR[modname] features of MM 2.0.3 - specifically, it specifies that the control surfaces are only changed for FAR:

The following parameters are currently implemented:

:BEFORE[ModName] - execute this patch BEFORE ModName executes its patches.

:FOR[ModName] - I am ModName, and these are my patches.

:AFTER[ModName] - execute this patch AFTER ModName executes its patches.

[Aedile]

well, so guess will need to use the old version of FAR then. Just got it to work with 23.5, so don't have the inclination to install mod by mod again.

As far as it 'shuldn do' - well yeah in ideal world.

It certainly breaks some of the mods I use, as the game would actually hang on loading them.

[FenrirWolf]

Did you delete the old version of MM or is a copy still hiding in your directory somewhere?

[Hodo]

BTW Ferram4,

Love the new version, the compression forces and speed settings was really needed!!!!!

[whaaw]

is it possible to to make this failure thing optional mabee thrugh the settings menu?

i would like to turn it off for me. Its a great feature but i like to get realy fast