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

[toadicus]

Is anyone else having trouble with timewarp? I've tried FAR on two different machines now, and whenever I try to time warp faster than 50x, the game stutters, pausing for a second or so every second or so. This is pretty much unplayable, but I'd really like to use FAR. Any thoughts?

TIA

[Nobody_1707]

Oh, that explains a lot. I thought I was just sucking at rocket design a bit more than usual.

[ialdabaoth]

Updated; new modular version appears to work better.

(Note that I am in no way affiliated with ferram, and any colossal screw-up on my part should i no way reflect on the excellence and skill of FAR).

Managed FAR, now with 20% less weirdness!

[a.g.]

I still get a nonsensical center of lift in the hangar with this stock craft: http://i.imgur.com/IqvPnUH.jpg

Looking at Player.log, it doesn't seem that "@module = Part" does anything, or at least it isn't visible there.

Edit: more importantly, you have two "part not found" errors in the log: for 'Mark3Cockpit' and 'smallCtrlSurf'. By messing with the craft I confirmed that the problem with that center of lift is because of those small control surface parts.

Edited May 25, 2013 by a.g.

[ferram4]

@tanihwa: Pwing stuff is currently in Taverius' and DYJ's court right now; hopefully what I've suggested to them works and we can get a working version up soon.

@a.g.: I've noticed that weird air intake stuttering bug. I think it's caused by the stock resource system since I've only changed the thrust and Isp of the jet engines to make them make more sense; I haven't change any resource usage code at all.

@toadicus: That might be caused by a combination of FAR doing some calculations that it doesn't need to do (for the UI) and the game trying to deal with the planet terrain being loaded and displayed; I've only noticed it at very low altitudes, so I'll look into trying to reduce unnecessary overhead. Just try to be cognizant of the timewarp issue at low altitudes and you'll be fine.

@ialdabaoth: I'll confirm that your module FAR version is compatible and then I'll integrate it into FAR proper.

[Huelander]

@ferram4No, its a bit different than that. If I put a rocket fairing under a plane wing for example, be it empty or with something inside the Cd stays the same on the SHP and flying, and the plane fly almost the same way.

Tested it with the previous version on 0.19.1 and those screenshot are from 0.20 with only the B9 (my most used cargo part) parts, your mod and TV Aerospace to be sure that it wasn't another mod that caused the issue.

Those two pics are from the plane Empty on the SPH and flying at 200m/s at around 1km of altitude. The Cd on it is pretty low, as expected, and the plane accelerate really fast, it can get off the runway around the middle without problems.

Those two are from the same plane with a bunch of structural fuselage inside, since they are relatively light and have a great surface area.

See, the Cd on it is a lot higher on the SPH and the flight date window, also it flies like a brick and can only get off the runway almost at the end.

With the cargo bay closed, just noticed it today by the way, the drag is much greater and the plug-in stops recognizing that there are parts shielded inside. Also it can't even get close to 200m/s anymore, it's like i am using a open chute with it.

[toadicus]

@ferram

Does 160km count as a low altitude? I'm testing on an i5 laptop with graphics turned all the way down, and still get the stuttering at my LKO station. I even get the stuttering at a KSO satellite. It occurs whether I'm in map view or staging view.

I think it is not as bad at higher altitudes, and higher time warps (>100) seem to suffer slightly less, though the effects wind up being worse (at 100000, I only see the satellite at two points per orbit).

The laptop is fully capable of running the stock game without any performance hits. Let me know if I can help out with anything!

[Huelander]

Also, many of my planes roll when i am using the pitch control. Even with the wing lever enabled when i press S or W it roll clockwise at 1-2 degrees per second, what I may did wrong for it to happen? it happens even on the plane that i posted last post.

Meanwhile this monster flies like a champ, empty for now since it had a insane drag with full cargo.

[a.g.]

@a.g.: I've noticed that weird air intake stuttering bug. I think it's caused by the stock resource system since I've only changed the thrust and Isp of the jet engines to make them make more sense; I haven't change any resource usage code at all.

Yes, it's obviously some problem in how resources work; from the screenshot it appears that it tries to draw air from one intake more than the other for some reason, and starts toggling on and off frame by frame when it runs out. But to report this, somebody has to reproduce it using all stock, so I wondered if anybody already has.

Edited May 25, 2013 by a.g.

[toadicus]

Updated; new modular version appears to work better.

(Note that I am in no way affiliated with ferram, and any colossal screw-up on my part should i no way reflect on the excellence and skill of FAR).

Managed FAR, now with 20% less weirdness!

Should this just be installed on top of FAR, or should the stock parts be reverted to stock as well?

Edited May 25, 2013 by toadicus
Forgot the quote

[ferram4]

@Huelander: Okay, the cargo bay bug is due to the fact that FAR currently assumes that the cargo bay starts off closed; I'll have to add some code to detect the starting cargo bay state.

The problem is likely that your vehicle isn't perfectly symmetrical. Odds are one of your wings is flexing more than its counterpart and it is causing asymmetric loads; try adding struts to fix this. Odds are that with a plane that big you'll have flexibility-based problems.

[Huelander]

It also happens with the MK3 cargo that starts off closed. It detects the parts inside but the plane drag still increases.

About the roll issue, it happens most of the time with small planes that I rarely use struts on the wings. That last plane has around 170 struts, so it makes sense for it be one of the most stable I've built. Thanks.

[Taverius]

It also happens with the MK3 cargo that starts off closed. It detects the parts inside but the plane drag still increases.

About the roll issue, it happens most of the time with small planes that I rarely use struts on the wings. That last plane has around 170 struts, so it makes sense for it be one of the most stable I've built. Thanks.

http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/290

Someday it will be fixed. Until then, strut /ALL/ surface-attached engines and wings, as well as any radially-attached boosters and such.

[Huelander]

That explains why the direction of the roll is the almost always the same, thanks for pointing it, time to use even more struts I guess. Also, your mod is really good Taverius, I can't wait for the awesome engines you and bac9 are doing.

[a.g.]

Whew, reproduced the asymmetrical air consumption and intermittent flame-out problem using pure stock fresh install, after tweaking the control surfaces and flying the thing for an hour to burn off some fuel mass:

http://imgur.com/a/dJlt9

Now it should be safe to report it somewhere I suppose.

[Taverius]

Whew, reproduced the asymmetrical air consumption and intermittent flame-out problem using pure stock fresh install, after tweaking the control surfaces and flying the thing for an hour to burn off some fuel mass:

http://imgur.com/a/dJlt9

Now it should be safe to report it somewhere I suppose.

That's a somewhat known bug with symmetry and resources. Do check if it already exists on the bug tracker.

[ganinian]

Is there any way to get the older versions?

[a.g.]

That's a somewhat known bug with symmetry and resources. Do check if it already exists on the bug tracker.

Hm, although I never noticed this before, I now did manage to reproduce the same intermittent flame-out using my backup of 0.19. So the effect isn't new; the new thing is that now both FAR and MechJeb are identically wrong in predicting it, while in 0.19 it starts happening exactly when air supply drops below 100% as computed by MechJeb. This might mean some new change in air consumption computations.

Edit: After some more experimentation, I found that the difference seems to be entirely because I disabled the engine nacelle intakes when testing in 0.19. Therefore, this issue seems to be very similar to the one that was causing problems for Kethane earlier: if you request a resource amount that cannot be serviced by any single tank, even if the total amount is sufficient, it can intermittently fail and return 0. In this instance it appears to render the small nacelle intakes completely useless once the air flow drops to a sufficiently low level.

A completely different issue that I just noticed is that it seems that in this latest FAR version the changes it previously did to the engines disappeared. The reason I disabled those nacelles in 0.19 is that it was hard to get the craft up to a height where it will flame-out with all intakes active, and I wanted to speed up events. In the current version however it is very easy to get it up to 18km even without specifically trying to - that's why I noticed this effect in the first place.

Edited May 27, 2013 by a.g.

[Photonically]

Hadn't really paid much attention to this until now, thought it looked like it'd overcomplicate things, but now I've tried it I think I'll be sticking with it, great improvement! The little UAV I tried to make that couldn't fly properly at all now works fine

Would it be possible for the CAS window in the VAB to stay closed if you leave it that way? A little bit annoying when it springs open every time I start a new vehicle. Also, the simulation tab on said window has a typo ('simultation').

Edited May 27, 2013 by Photonically
Grammar

[asmi]

Would it be possible for the CAS window in the VAB to stay closed if you leave it that way? A little bit annoying when it springs open every time I start a new vehicle.

I second that. Also would it be possible to prevent "clicks-through" GUI (when you click something on GUI the click also "falls through" whatever is under it)?

[ferram4]

@Photonically: I think the problem with the CAS window in the VAB is that the class running it is reinitialized every time you load a vehicle or start a new one; it's a class that it loaded every time there's a scene change and I think that loading a vehicle or starting a new one causes that to happen.

@asmi: It already does that; the only part that doesn't do that with is the button to open and close it, which I keep meaning to fix.

[asmi]

@asmi: It already does that; the only part that doesn't do that with is the button to open and close it, which I keep meaning to fix.

Nope, just checked - clicks still fall through (checked with parts list by putting UI over parts list and clicking).

[Challenger-X2]

What fairings mod do people recommend to go with this?

[asmi]

What fairings mod do people recommend to go with this?

Before 0.20 I was using KW Rocketry pack, but it's not yet updated for 0.20...

[Nobody_1707]

Officially anyway, I updated my copy to 0.20, but the license says I can't distribute modified copies. You can use the unofficial patch and place it in the legacy parts folder and it should work fine though. KW has the best fairings.

Also, I can confirm that the GUI clicks through, at least for the button.