Bring back AutoStrut

[PoppersRHere]

Please... bring back autostrut. I don't want all my rockets to look ugly and be riddle with struts all over the place.

[ilikejeb]

there will be autostrut but not yet i think

[XLjedi]

There is no point in trying to build any of my spaceplanes without an autostrut tool.

Wonder how long we might have to wait for that one?

[Squaremantis]

I hope they bring autostrut back, many of my larger missions would be much harder without it.

[NaughtyMonster]

Assuming autostrut will be implemented at some point; can it please be made to add mass to the craft proportional to the extent of the autostruting?

Struts have mass, so should autostruts!

[Vl3d]

Autostruts should not be in the game. Rockets should be less wobbly to begin with and disintegrate under aero forces.

[Dragorans]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes 

 

 

[Václav Marek]

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Autostruts should not be in the game. Rockets should be less wobbly to begin with and disintegrate under aero forces.

I think that would actually be pretty fun to implement, a sort of FEM model of an Euler-Bernoulli beam, where the stiffness of the connections between two parts of the rocket would depend on the stiffness of the parts ahead and before themselves. It's a good question of how much of a load that would put on the system, because essentially every part connection would need to have a 12x12 (6DOF) stiffness matrix Kij , same size mass matrix, and then when compiling the body of the rocket, the total stiffness and mass matrices for the entire craft could be computed. Based on those, the behaviour of the entire rocket could be simulated at once by solving for the deflections caused by an aerodynamic load provided this matrix.

* stiffness matrix above is for 3DOF, hence the difference in size.

[XLjedi]

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Autostruts should not be in the game. Rockets should be less wobbly to begin with and disintegrate under aero forces.

Well, if that's the case, then spaceplanes should not be in the game.

Their purpose (IMO) was mostly related to making plane airframes stable.

7 hours ago, NaughtyMonster said:

Assuming autostrut will be implemented at some point; can it please be made to add mass to the craft proportional to the extent of the autostruting?

Struts have mass, so should autostruts!

In  the large majority of cases when I use them on airframes, I consider them a bolt between parts and whether or not they have mass is not terribly important to me.

[Why485]

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Autostruts should not be in the game. Rockets should be less wobbly to begin with and disintegrate under aero forces.

I agree. Autostruts are an inelegant and hacky solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.

[schlosrat]

10 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Well, if that's the case, then spaceplanes should not be in the game.

I think you might have missed @Vl3d’s point. Either that, or I did., but I don’t think he’s saying there shouldn’t be spaceplanes. Perhaps the point was that building spaceplanes shouldn’t require you to use autostruts. Wouldn’t that be a better solution?

[XLjedi]

14 hours ago, schlosrat said:

I think you might have missed @Vl3d’s point. Either that, or I did., but I don’t think he’s saying there shouldn’t be spaceplanes. Perhaps the point was that building spaceplanes shouldn’t require you to use autostruts. Wouldn’t that be a better solution?

Sure, that might be a solution.  But if that were the case, it would also mean that the autostruts are automatically being applied to the spaceplane parts anyway.  So far, it seems they are using a similar approach to aerodynamics and non-rigid part connection as was applied in KSP1.  Under that scenario, each laterally mounted part includes its own aerodynamic "silo" and you will see stress applied at the connecting joint.   For spaceplanes, it made the airframes non-rigid and flimsy until the autostrut property (which are not separate parts, BTW) of each part was enabled to solve the problem and make our planes behave like planes. 

I don't see how the VAB would be able to differentiate between a spaceplane frame and a rocket in order to treat each one differently.  The option to apply the autostrut property to a given part is best left to the designer of the vehicle.  My suspicion here is that those who would prefer to see the autostrut feature removed also favor a rocket-based career.  If you have built spaceplanes and had to deal with segments of the fuselage flapping around unrealistically, then you would know why the autostrut is important for air/space plane designs.

I would agree that @Vl3d's point did not take into consideration spaceplanes.  My point was to point out the unintended consequence of removing the part property (it is a property of parts, not a separate part) for the people who seem to favor rocket building.  In my own rocket designs, I use regular visible struts where they would be appropriate, and autostruts also where they would be appropriate.  It is not an unfair assumption that if two parts are laterally connected that a weld seam would exist where the parts are clipped together. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by XLjedi

[Vl3d]

If they make rockets more rigid it should also apply to planes.

[XLjedi]

10 hours ago, Vl3d said:

If they make rockets more rigid it should also apply to planes.

They do not work the same way.   You don't fly rockets through the atmosphere; you are more poking a hole through it on a one-way trip.

Am I correct, in that your career is focused heavily on rockets?   If I heavily favored the use of rockets, I might share your opinion. 

[Vl3d]

Joint rigidity applies to all vehicles. It's less of an issue now for planes because of procedural wings (fewer joints).

[Periple]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:47 PM, XLjedi said:

Well, if that's the case, then spaceplanes should not be in the game.

Their purpose (IMO) was mostly related to making plane airframes stable.

What kind of trouble are you having with your planes? I haven't had any rigidity issues with mine. The biggest one I built was around four of the 5 m cargo bays so it was pretty big! The limiting factor for getting them to orbit right now is that adding more Rapiers tanks the frame rate, so I've only flown the biggest ones at relatively low altitudes on Goliaths, but I have flow mid-sized spaceplanes too with no structural issues. I don't use regular struts much either.

[XLjedi]

2 hours ago, Periple said:

What kind of trouble are you having with your planes? I haven't had any rigidity issues with mine. The biggest one I built was around four of the 5 m cargo bays so it was pretty big! The limiting factor for getting them to orbit right now is that adding more Rapiers tanks the frame rate, so I've only flown the biggest ones at relatively low altitudes on Goliaths, but I have flow mid-sized spaceplanes too with no structural issues. I don't use regular struts much either.

I'm having quite a bit of trouble with planes and parts that are currently missing.  I listed most of the issues in the bug report section here filed  under "Procedural Wings".  

Feel free to take a look.

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Joint rigidity applies to all vehicles. It's less of an issue now for planes because of procedural wings (fewer joints).

Unless you make very basic planes (ailerons only for instance, no flaps, split flaps, etc) there are too many parts currently missing for me to even make the plane in my signature.  Complex wing shapes currently require at least 3 or 4 procedural wing segments.  To have flaps, you would need at least two.  

Edited March 8, 2023 by XLjedi

[Periple]

10 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

I'm having quite a bit of trouble with planes and parts that are currently missing.  I listed most of the issues in the bug report section here filed  under "Procedural Wings".  

I looked and while it's a good list, it didn't have anything about rigidity or struts. 

Admittedly the most complex wings I've built only have three segments but still it's clear we're doing something differently. 

[XLjedi]

8 minutes ago, Periple said:

I looked and while it's a good list, it didn't have anything about rigidity or struts. 

Admittedly the most complex wings I've built only have three segments but still it's clear we're doing something differently. 

I didn't need to mention autostrut on that list, because it is here.  The absence of autostrut, plus the list of significant issues I have reported, are the answer to your question.  "What kind of trouble are you having with your planes?"   

I can see the lack of autostrut is going to be an issue as clearly as I see the other issues I noted.

Edited March 8, 2023 by XLjedi

[Periple]

Please tell me if I'm getting bothersome but I really am curious: could you post a picture of a craft that you built that is too wobbly?

(Oh and just to be clear, it's obvious that something needs to be done about joint rigidity, whether it's autostrut or some other solution! I just haven't had that issue with planes or wings at all, only tall rockets and similar.)

Edited March 8, 2023 by Periple

[XLjedi]

4 minutes ago, Periple said:

Please tell me if I'm getting bothersome but I really am curious: could you post a picture of a craft that you built that is too wobbly?

(Oh and just to be clear, it's obvious that something needs to be done about joint rigidity, whether it's autostrut or some other solution!)

Any craft that has segmented wings, the wing parts will separate under force.  Almost any wing design that is not the typical basic wing with a single aileron as a flight control surface might have the problem as well as any fuselage that has laterally connected parts.  Unfortunately, the one plane I had is in such a sad state of disrepair at the moment that if I posted a pic, there would not be any wings on it.

After the experience, I kinda walked away from the game and posted my observations here in terms of what is missing.  I can't really build the planes that I built in KSP1 at this point.  So I have to wait it out a bit.

Edited March 8, 2023 by XLjedi

[Periple]

OK, got it! I just haven't had my planes RUD in flight noticeably more than in KSP1, even if I have more than one wing segment on them!

[XLjedi]

Just now, Periple said:

OK, got it! I just haven't had my planes RUD in flight noticeably more than in KSP1, even if I have more than one wing segment on them!

Neither have I, but I also had autostrut in KSP1 to correct the issue.