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

[Van Disaster]

That's good then, thanks. Would it make a difference to FAR if there were more, thinner strips spanwise?

[TK421d]

i only recently reinstalled far, and ever since i am crashing every time i change scenes, try to launch, load a save, etc.

my memory footprint has also increased by about 60%

can you look at a recent crash log and see if anything obvious stands out?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvqh5llzeiwwyl3/2015-10-15_114634.zip?dl=0

[baldamundo]

Does the estimated range in the FAR in-flight data panel represent total range, or like 'range before point of no return'?

[NathanKell]

Total range AFAIK. It wouldn't know how far you have to fly home unless you told it where home was.

[ferram4]

@BobsYerUncle: I can see quite a few exceptions from FAR, but all of those are in situations that should never occur unless another mod was to somehow interfere with what FAR is doing. In addition, I doubt those are the sources of your issues.

In any case, I have no explanation for a 60% increase in memory usage. If that ends up being just enough to push you over into crashing, (which in most cases occurs near ~3.6-3.7 GB) and that FAR is actually increasing memory usage by 60%, then that implies that FAR is adding ~1.3 GB to the memory usage. Now, the most I've seen is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 MB at most and I think even that number is excessive and have been reducing it, so you've got a lot of explaining about what's going on in the save files and with what mods you're working with to explain what's breaking so badly. Especially since I'll need reproduction steps to have any hope of recreating it to work with it. And if those steps really are "just install FAR and everything breaks" then you're leaving all the stuff that actually causes it out.

Edited October 16, 2015 by ferram4

[ROXunreal]

I haven't played KSP since January. How is the new aerodynamics compared to FAR? I played with FAR before, should I do it again? I completely reinstalled the game with no mods so I'm wondering what to add.

[damerell]

I haven't played KSP since January. How is the new aerodynamics compared to FAR? I played with FAR before, should I do it again? I completely reinstalled the game with no mods so I'm wondering what to add.

The new stock aero is _very roughly_ like old FAR. Unlike old stock aero it is not obviously absurd. It is not as good as new FAR.

If you want to fly planes and care about the plausibility of the design, you will want FAR. If you want to launch rockets and point them surface prograde, you probably won't notice a lot of difference.

[Van Disaster]

New stock aero is still detectably soupy, not really like old FAR. New FAR is far more like old FAR - old stuff *should* work fine unless it is pushing the limits of sensible aerodynamics.

But yeah if all you're doing is basic rocketry then either works.

Edit: this is a more interesting stall; just cruising around Laythe, notice the FAR window flashing at me every now and then, so I turn on stall lighting & start vidcapping. Sure enough, every few seconds either one of these panels ( or both ) or one of the ones on the edge of the wing is stalling for a frame or two. No clipping in that wing ( well no deliberate clipping, I can see a couple of panels have gone askew a little & overlapped at the edges ), can't make much sense of it

Edited October 16, 2015 by Van Disaster

[tetryds]

@Van Disaster: that is a more interesting report.

I would still heavily suggest fixing any clipping and trying again.

But even if it's an actual bug, the entire wing code is being rewritten so wasting a lot of time on this bug that seems somewhat rare may not be worth right now.

Ah, sometimes all you have to do is pick your wing part and place it again at the same place it was, usually the part that is causing trouble is enough but I recommend rebuilding the whole wing.

Stall issues on FAR are very rare.

Edited October 16, 2015 by tetryds

[TK421d]

@BobsYerUncle: I can see quite a few exceptions from FAR, but all of those are in situations that should never occur unless another mod was to somehow interfere with what FAR is doing. In addition, I doubt those are the sources of your issues.

In any case, I have no explanation for a 60% increase in memory usage. If that ends up being just enough to push you over into crashing, (which in most cases occurs near ~3.6-3.7 GB) and that FAR is actually increasing memory usage by 60%, then that implies that FAR is adding ~1.3 GB to the memory usage. Now, the most I've seen is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 MB at most and I think even that number is excessive and have been reducing it, so you've got a lot of explaining about what's going on in the save files and with what mods you're working with to explain what's breaking so badly. Especially since I'll need reproduction steps to have any hope of recreating it to work with it. And if those steps really are "just install FAR and everything breaks" then you're leaving all the stuff that actually causes it out.

all this is my same train of thought. i trimmed out a lot of misc parts and plugins i dont use and managed cut back about 600ish meg from my normal load, its helped some, but am still getting frequent crashes. will let you know if the number of exceptions drops or not

[ROXunreal]

The new stock aero is _very roughly_ like old FAR. Unlike old stock aero it is not obviously absurd. It is not as good as new FAR.

If you want to fly planes and care about the plausibility of the design, you will want FAR. If you want to launch rockets and point them surface prograde, you probably won't notice a lot of difference.

New stock aero is still detectably soupy, not really like old FAR. New FAR is far more like old FAR - old stuff *should* work fine unless it is pushing the limits of sensible aerodynamics.

But yeah if all you're doing is basic rocketry then either works.

Thanks, I think I'll still get FAR

[Svm420]

Hey Ferram, any idea how I can add this module to the animation overrides to avoid constant re-voxelization when the light is on. From this mod. My sticking point is there is no animation name field so I was unsure of how to make it compatible or if it would need something stronger done. thanks

{
	name = lightnav_red
	type = PART
	parentUrl = AviationLights/Parts/lights/lightnav_red
	url = AviationLights/Parts/lights/lightnav_red/lightnav_red
	PART
	{
		name = lightnav_red
		module = Part
		author = RPGprayer, BigNose, Why485, GROOV3ST3R, JDP, J.Random
		scale = 1
		rescaleFactor = 1
		node_attach = -0.025, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0
		TechRequired = earlyAviation
		cost = 10
		category = Utility
		subcategory = 1
		title = Red Navlight
		manufacturer = Kerbus Lighting Department
		description = Standard aviation red navlight for the left wingtip. Use Action Groups to switch modes.
		attachRules = 0,1,0,1,0
		mass = 0.001
		dragModelType = default
		minimum_drag = 0
		maximum_drag = 0
		angularDrag = 0
		crashTolerance = 20
		maxTemp = 3200
		thermalMassModifier = 5.0
		MODEL
		{
			model = AviationLights/Parts/lights/model
			texture = model000, AviationLights/Parts/lights/model000nav_red
		}
		MODULE
		{
			EnergyReq = 0.005
			name = ModuleNavLight
			Color = 0.50, 0.12, 0.07
			IntervalFlashMode = 0
			FlashOn = 0.5
			FlashOff = 1.5
			Interval = 1
	      }
}

[Van Disaster]

@Van Disaster: that is a more interesting report.

I would still heavily suggest fixing any clipping and trying again.

But even if it's an actual bug, the entire wing code is being rewritten so wasting a lot of time on this bug that seems somewhat rare may not be worth right now.

Ah, sometimes all you have to do is pick your wing part and place it again at the same place it was, usually the part that is causing trouble is enough but I recommend rebuilding the whole wing.

Stall issues on FAR are very rare.

I've actually never run into them before this version ( kinda odd since it's still using the same wing code I think? ). Either way that one is probably harmless - I changed altitude a little both up & down & it stopped, so a really odd edge case I guess.

So what biplane effects are actually in the current version? I asked about it from the point of tail->wing interaction back a page or two, but I'm trying to stop my tail stalling now; do I have to worry only if there's actual overlap ( and how much vertical separation do I need if there's horizontal overlap ) or are there any effects due to general proximity of another surface?

[Armyguy]

So some how my stock parts are not makeing any lift

http://i.imgur.com/o34R0Dv.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YkwHtR1.jpg

Any one know why?

[blowfish]

So some how my stock parts are not makeing any lift

http://i.imgur.com/o34R0Dv.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YkwHtR1.jpg

Any one know why?

Welcome to the forums!

The way FAR models wings, they produce zero lift at zero angle of attack. In order to get lift, the wing needs some positive incidence to the airstream. There are 3 ways to do this: (1) Position the rear landing gear just behind the center of mass so that you can pitch up before taking off, (2) Angle the wings a bit in the editor, (3) Make the nose landing gear taller than the tail landing gear so that the plane sits at an angle.

[tetryds]

So some how my stock parts are not makeing any lift

http://i.imgur.com/o34R0Dv.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YkwHtR1.jpg

Any one know why?

Welcome to the forums

Yes, what blowfish said, if you want more design tips and other things like that you will be better posting at this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121176-Official-FAR-Craft-Repository

There we can discuss everything and assist you on your designs without getting on the way of bug reports or other things related to the mod itself.

That thread is an amazing read if you have the time to go through it, at least a few pages back.

Edited October 17, 2015 by tetryds

[Armyguy]

Welcome to the forums!

The way FAR models wings, they produce zero lift at zero angle of attack. In order to get lift, the wing needs some positive incidence to the airstream. There are 3 ways to do this: (1) Position the rear landing gear just behind the center of mass so that you can pitch up before taking off, (2) Angle the wings a bit in the editor, (3) Make the nose landing gear taller than the tail landing gear so that the plane sits at an angle.

Ty for the welcome. I did some more testing and it looks like its not the AoA but straight vs swept the i made two of the same plane one that has a straight wing and one swept and only the swepted one flys. http://i.imgur.com/mYPwYdx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ut3wDmW.jpg Its looks like Im need work more on my Hayes planes.

Welcome to the forums

Yes, what blowfish said, if you want more design tips and other things like that you will be better posting at this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121176-Official-FAR-Craft-Repository

There we can discuss everything and assist you on your designs without getting on the way of bug reports or other things related to the mod itself.

That thread is an amazing read if you have the time to go through it, at least a few pages back.

Yea i will need to do that. Edited October 17, 2015 by Armyguy

[ferram4]

@Van Disaster: Well, then you definitely need to provide full reproduction steps with minimal mods and the simplest craft possible and no wing clipping. I haven't been able to cause a wing stall issue in awhile.

@Bob's Yer Uncle: Yeah, I'm really not sure what's happening there. Are you certain that you haven't changed any FAR settings or had any old FAR configs from previous versions? Also look into other plugins that do things when the game loads up, and check to make sure that you don't have lots of debris or crafts sitting around the launch site that need to be loaded in when you go to launch. Any of those might cause the memory usage to spike.

@Svm420: As of right now... you don't. I can add a bit of code to make it decide that if it can't find a field with that name that it will switch to look for the animation with that name, but I have no idea how wise an idea that is. It will certainly result in a lot of issues.

@ArmyGuy: No, it's the AoA. Both of your designs have wings with ~0 AoA relative to the airflow when the plane is on the ground. Now, that's perfectly fine, since normally you'd just rotate the plane to take off, and then the wings will create more than enough lift. As it is now though, your main gear is far too far behind the CoM for the elevators to have enough leverage to lift the nose up; move the main gear further forward and that'll fix it.

An alternative option is to rotate the wings up slightly, and possibly push them forward a bit.

I'll also note that it looks like you didn't install FAR correctly at all, because the FAR icon that should be in the little toolbar is pure white, which only happens when someone fails to install it correctly.

[Cairol]

I'd like so much to re-install FAR.

But the still ocurring overheating bug thingie is a killer for me.

It's so annoying that I can't use a really great mod just because the stock game has this weird behavior

and interacts strangely with FAR in this regard.

But having my space stations and other things spontaneously explode due to overheating is just frustrating.

[cantab]

Debug Menu > Physics > Thermal, untick all the boxes there. It took me far too long to find that out.

[baldamundo]

What is the overheating bug exactly?

[Van Disaster]

@Ferram: If you think it's worth pursuing I will do whatever you like - I'd be inclined to ignore it if there's a new wing model imminent; it looks like a real edge case, but if you like I'll go back and test more. I'm still interested in how much two nearby wings interact in the current one, though.

Craft is stock, that's not an issue. I'll take a quick check for overlapping panels - I don't know how overlapping anything has to be to be called "clipped" though.

[Van Disaster]

Flew the plane around Kerbin & noticed the same thing, so I fiddled with the wings until there was no obvious shimmering. Some parts disappear inside the body a bit, but as far as I can tell there's no overlap unless intakes count. So just in case it's worth investigating anyway, I:

• Installed a fresh copy of 1.0.4. Installed FAR release, KJR, latest StockBugFix and Pilot Assistant ( which should do absolutely nothing to physics ).
  
• Set speed to 300m/s, stepped up altitude between 2000m and 3000m, stall flickers present.
  

Craft is a pig because it was only intended for a single challenge, I defuelled it so it'd just lift off the stock runway, nuclear engine toggle is actiongroup 3. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rlsc5gquzlquhl/FAR.Stall.1.0.4.Dbg.zip?dl=0

[BudgetHedgehog]

What is the overheating bug exactly?

Parts that have high skin area (that is optionally clipped inside their parent) but low thermal mass, e.g. the CubOS or even a docking port, oscillate their temperature, increasing every timestep, out to infinity degrees. Part A heats up, wants to transfer to part B but part B has a low thermal mass and a high skin temp tolerance so it accepts the heat, part B is now very hot for its size and wants to transfer to Part A to remove the heat, Part A accepts the heat but becomes very very hot and wants to transfer heat to Part B which becomes very very very hot and so it oscillates out to infinity.. Or something like that.

[Van Disaster]

More relevant to FAR, if you attach engines to pre-coolers then lock the fuel tank in them...