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

[Mekan1k]

@ctbram: Dunno, looks like you either screwed up the installation or something is interfering with it. Don't know what though, I've never seen that happen from any of the mods you listed.

@blowfish: Confirmed, it's fixed by opening and closing the bays (even just partially). Not sure what causes it though yet, I'll need to investigate.

@Mekan1k: Ummm.... yes. In fact, everyone can. That would be because it is part of the stock game.

Ok. How do you duplicate this without FAR or NEAR? I can't iscolate the component that causes it.

[tetryds]

Ok. How do you duplicate this without FAR or NEAR? I can't iscolate the component that causes it.

What is the problem with that?

You could just remove the fuel using tweakables anyway

This is stock and was added on 0.24.

Check "Parts" line 2: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/0.24

[Woodstar]

Yup had near still installed, There is a problem with the harbinger, it seem to spawn two cockpits and it's stuck in the ground at take off. So when you try to take off you run it over and destroy the aircraft.

Edited November 2, 2014 by Woodstar

[Forty21112]

@Forty21112: The 0.24.2-compatible versions of FAR do not function with the new wing parts at all. You would be best served by updating to the latest version of FAR instead of trying to find something "better" among the older, buggier, less-compatible versions.

No, that's not what I meant. In the current, latest version of FAR, every wing, B9 Aerospace, Pwings and the stock SP+, does not even border on the realm of "working".

Now, I did some tests way back, with the same aircraft, same options, and same ways. 0.24.2 aircraft behaved like it should be. 0.25 did not.

Now, a question of my own, how do you use the new option in the wings that was added in 0.25? So far, changing them to 0.5 or 1.0 does not do anything. At least not in flight.

I'll have the aerodynamic data and craft file should you want to investigate yourself.

[tetryds]

No, that's not what I meant. In the current, latest version of FAR, every wing, B9 Aerospace, Pwings and the stock SP+, does not even border on the realm of "working".

Now, I did some tests way back, with the same aircraft, same options, and same ways. 0.24.2 aircraft behaved like it should be. 0.25 did not.

Now, a question of my own, how do you use the new option in the wings that was added in 0.25? So far, changing them to 0.5 or 1.0 does not do anything. At least not in flight.

I'll have the aerodynamic data and craft file should you want to investigate yourself.

That setting increases wing weight in favor of wing strenght.

The 0.5 setting is already stronger than it was back on 0.24.2.

It's a good feature, makes using FAR super easy (too easy IMO, but ok).

[slumpie]

So this time something completely different:

FAR caused my output_log to bloat like crazy, after just 40min of playing it reached a size of 340 MB! 340 MEGABYTES of text!!!

KSP_log is 250MB big...

Sometimes I let the game run for hours, how big would the log be in such a case? A few Gigabytes?

I had to compress it into a zip file, luckily the compression ratio is awesome for text files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqv9zc2dv9xs2ti/output_log.zip?dl=0

Win32 btw

I guess it could be a bad config or so.

EDIT: Config...

Edited November 2, 2014 by slumpie

[Master Tao]

FAR caused my output_log to bloat like crazy, after just 40min of playing it reached a size of 340 MB! 340 MEGABYTES of text!!!

...

I guess it could be a bad config or so.

Did it occur before or only after you added configs for the old stock parts?

[Guest]

It's a good feature, makes using FAR super easy (too easy IMO, but ok).

It's realistic, though it does make solving problems with COM balancing much, much easier as a side effect. I suppose you can do that IRL too, though. Most modern jet fighters have their pilot fail before anything else, so I think that 10+ G tolerance is fine. You can still get an aerodynamic failure, and would likely want to keep the wings as light as possible on a spaceplane.

[NathanKell]

Thanks for the clarification, so in other words i won't be able to calculate what i need unless i learn how to "really" code and make a plugin to get that number i need, right?

Sure! Sorry for the delay.

You can export the various curves, but you're never going to know whether the player who uses the autopilot is going to have different ones modded in. This is why I am suggesting you pull the actual values, ingame.

This value i was trying to calculate it to make the user of the autopilot select an altitude and get the air density calculated, so the script can later calculate the level flight AoA, now if under FAR i can't calculate the air density, how can i make FAR stability analysis calculate the AoA needed for level flight for a X altitude?? I mean when i do the analysis for SSTO's, as you guys told me i use 0.5, 0.04 and 0.01, mmmmm i believe i'm confused, is air density what i need to calculate the AoA? the inputs for that chart are "temperature", "air density", and "speed (in mach)"...

Speed is selected by user, temperature and air density are related to height, how do i tell the user of the autopilot to input under FAR's chart X temperature and X air density if the want a cruise altitude of 5km?, as an example.

You can evaluate the temperatureCurve of the body you want by calling, for some CelestialBody body, body.temperatureCurve.Evaluate(5) // for 5km

For density, you can use one of FAR's static methods to get the density of the atmsophere of a given CelestialBody at a given height.

I'll go a little further here and may be find a work around... provided i need AoA for level flight for my autopilot... i need just that so i can achieve that AoA during the flight and maintain altitude... instead of making my script calculate it i can just use the FAR stability data and make the script use that AoA provided there, and set the altitude and speed inside FAR's editor... so that solves the problem in a less sofisticated way... but it works nonetheless... the next problem is going to be to translate the pitch (which goes from -1 to 1) into a usable data, in other words the AoA for said pitch, now is there a way to calculate that?

I'm confident enough to say that the pitch value will change by the amount of elevons you have, the design of them, and the position in the plane as well, but rather than tweaking it until it gets there (which my current script kind of does) i would like to be able, if possible, to calculate that exact pitch number, is it possible?

I think you will need to make a PID controller for that. Due to how things wobble in KSP, let alone due to velocity (and thus required AoA as well as pitch control surface torque) you can't just set one pitch setting, you'll have to constantly alter it depending on flight conditions.

And last but not least, i just don't remember this haha... but does far show the current AoA? it does right? under flight data? (i believe it is, so to save time i'll go ask the kOS devs if that value is gettable, if it's not, then there it comes the previous question, is it possible to calculate it, if it's not, then hmmmmmmm... will have to think a work around!

Thank you once again for the support, i have been receiving so much support from the kOS thread, and from this thread that i do need to make this happen! I will end up with a altitude holder that holds the exact desired altitude!

Indeed it does! And it's exposed via the FAR API. But it's easy to calculate, it's just the angle difference (in pitch) between your vessel's forward axis and the surface velocity vector.

And you're most welcome!

[slumpie]

Did it occur before or only after you added configs for the old stock parts?

... I dublicated the configs for the SPP replacements and renamed them, but I guess I forgot to delete the transform line.

Now this time I copied and pasted the configs from the 24.2 FAR version, 14.1 I think, and renamed them. Only the ones for the relevant parts to be precise.

Now it gives me a ton of other exceptions, not as excessive as before though: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3a2a048sez5b0sq/output_log.txt?dl=0

@PART[StandardCtrlSrfREDUX]:FOR[FerramAerospaceResearch]
{
    @module = Part
    @maximum_drag = 0
    @minimum_drag = 0
    @angularDrag = 0
    @dragCoeff = 0
    @deflectionLiftCoeff = 0
    @ctrlSurfaceRange = 0
    @ctrlSurfaceArea = 0
    MODULE
    {
        name = FARControllableSurface
        MAC = 0.668
        e = 0.9
        nonSideAttach = 1
        maxdeflect = 20
        MidChordSweep = 0
        b_2 = 2.914
        TaperRatio = 1
    }
}
@PART[deltaWingREDUX]:FOR[FerramAerospaceResearch]
{
    @module = Part
    @maximum_drag = 0
    @minimum_drag = 0
    @angularDrag = 0
    @dragCoeff = 0
    @deflectionLiftCoeff = 0
    MODULE
    {
        name = FARWingAerodynamicModel
        MAC = 2.264
        e = 0.75
        MidChordSweep = 22.16
        b_2 = 3.601
        TaperRatio = 0.188
    }
}
@PART[smallCtrlSrfREDUX]:FOR[FerramAerospaceResearch]
{
    @module = Part
    @maximum_drag = 0
    @minimum_drag = 0
    @angularDrag = 0
    @dragCoeff = 0
    @deflectionLiftCoeff = 0
    MODULE
    {
        name = FARControllableSurface
        MAC = 0.541
        e = 0.9
        maxdeflect = 20
        nonSideAttach = 1
        b_2 = 0.889
        TaperRatio = 1
    }
}
@PART[wingConnectorREDUX]:FOR[FerramAerospaceResearch]
{
    @module = Part
    @maximum_drag = 0
    @minimum_drag = 0
    @angularDrag = 0
    @dragCoeff = 0
    @deflectionLiftCoeff = 0
    MODULE
    {
        name = FARWingAerodynamicModel
        MAC = 3.516
        e = 0.7
        MidChordSweep = 0
        b_2 = 1.744
        TaperRatio = 1
    }
}

Note: All I did was to add "REDUX"

Edited November 2, 2014 by slumpie

[ctbram]

@ctbram: Dunno, looks like you either screwed up the installation or something is interfering with it. Don't know what though, I've never seen that happen from any of the mods you listed.

I can promise the mod is installed properly. Before posting I uninstalled and reinstalled. I will start a completely fresh gamedata folder and start with just FAR and other mods to see which is causing the interference. I will let you know what I find.

[ctbram]

I can promise the mod is installed properly. Before posting I uninstalled and reinstalled. I will start a completely fresh gamedata folder and start with just FAR and other mods to see which is causing the interference. I will let you know what I find.

Okay, I did a binary swapping of all my mods and tracked the culprit to ActiveTextureManagement x86 in both basic and aggressive mode. I switched to basic and the problem persists. I switch back to aggressive and you FAR icon goes blank white again. But if I remove ATM completely the icons renders fine again.

As a work around I have selected the option to display the FAR icon in the blizzy tool bar instead of the quad tb.

I will toss the ATM author a note with some screenshots. Hopefully this will help if someone else stumbles onto this issue.

cheers

Edited November 3, 2014 by ctbram

[MedwedianPresident]

If I install FAR, will I be able to build an Antipodal Bomber?

[Wanderfound]

If I install FAR, will I be able to build an Antipodal Bomber?

That appears to be a fairly basic pseudo-spaceplane with a staged boost on the HOTOL launch; no reason why not.

I'd start by building some simple atmospheric planes and basic spaceplanes to get the hang of aerodynamic design first, though. Walk, then run.

[ThorBeorn]

I'm seeing a inaccurate CoL during construction. As seen below, the CoL is shown more rearward during construction of the wings than after loading. The CoL as shown in the second image (after loading) is the same CoL used during flight...

...So I'm having to constantly save and then load my craft every time I add, remove, or move wings, just so I can see where the real CoL is.

This is with the latest FAR of 14.3.2.

This bug also affects me, as I posted earlier, but Ferram said he can't reproduce it.

I also want to report this bug. But in my case the CoL moves backward when loading, causing planes to dart into the ground if they mangage to take off at all. This is with P-wings if that matters.

[-ktf-.VtD]

It would be great to have a setting to automatically disable flight assistance toggles above the atmosphere. I've spent half an hour just now fighting and "uncontrollable" craft with "unressettable trim" and RCS firing by itself and depleting my tanks, found out that was FAR trying to prevent stalling without atmosphere.

[astroju]

I'd like to to thank Ferram for this really awesome mod. Stock aerodynamics just feels so wrong now, and I find after the initial learning curve FAR actually makes the game easier since drag and hence required delta-V is less than in stock. It also makes putting winglets on rocket bottoms actually useful as well.

One question I have is, how could the space shuttle keep a 40 degree re-entry angle? I tried doing this but quite quickly the torque from aerodynamic forces meant I couldn't keep the AoA above ~10 degrees.

[Wanderfound]

I'd like to to thank Ferram for this really awesome mod. Stock aerodynamics just feels so wrong now, and I find after the initial learning curve FAR actually makes the game easier since drag and hence required delta-V is less than in stock. It also makes putting winglets on rocket bottoms actually useful as well.

One question I have is, how could the space shuttle keep a 40 degree re-entry angle? I tried doing this but quite quickly the torque from aerodynamic forces meant I couldn't keep the AoA above ~10 degrees.

Lots of RCS, basically. They used a thruster system to maintain pitch during the early stages of reentry.

Also, the pitch-up reentry thing is a high-altitude only tactic; pull the nose back close to prograde once you start to feel the air through your controls.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Wanderfound

[astroju]

Lots of RCS, basically. They used a thruster system to maintain pitch during the early stages of reentry.

Also, the pitch-up reentry thing is a high-altitude only tactic; pull the nose back close to prograde once you start to feel the air through your controls.

Ah I see, that makes a lot of sense. So it's even more important to have a shallow re-entry to keep the high AoA for as long as possible.

[Wanderfound]

Ah I see, that makes a lot of sense. So it's even more important to have a shallow re-entry to keep the high AoA for as long as possible.

Well, that's one way to do it. The alternative is to just dive to 30,000m before levelling off and ride the edge of overheating and aerodynamic failure all the way down. Option 1 is safer, option 2 is a great deal faster.

[astroju]

Well, that's one way to do it. The alternative is to just dive to 30,000m before levelling off and ride the edge of overheating and aerodynamic failure all the way down. Option 1 is safer, option 2 is a great deal faster.

And as Scott Manley himself says, "a landing you can walk out of clearly wasn't fast enough".

[Wanderfound]

And as Scott Manley himself says, "a landing you can walk out of clearly wasn't fast enough".

I thought that was Jeb's motto.

If you push the limits, you can get from the KSC runway to a circular 70km orbit in under five minutes, and back down to the KSC runway in another ten. Doing that takes you a very long way from optimum fuel efficiency and safety, however.

Incidentally, airbrakes can accelerate the reentry process a great deal. You don't need B9 for this; just use pairs of opposing flaps and spoilers.

[astroju]

I do have Deadly Re-entry so I really can't re-enter too steeply. I have used air breaks in the past, although they feel pretty wrong using at sugh high speeds - surely such a high speed is likely to rip them off. I'll however remember your trick about about flaps and spoilers

[SirSock]

For some reason, on most of my old planes which used to work fine my landing flaps now cause instantaneous stall, no matter what speed I try putting them out at.

[blowfish]

For some reason, on most of my old planes which used to work fine my landing flaps now cause instantaneous stall, no matter what speed I try putting them out at.

A lot of the aerodynamics were reworked recently - you may need to rebalance old designs.