KSP's Flight Model, without RotPower

[Fel]

Well, I decided to peek in the Spaceplane Hanger again for 0.20.2; I had largely turned down RotPower all over because of my own "dislikes."

It took a fair while, and I ended up removing all landing gear and using Claire's spherical fuel tanks because the default tank was too heavy... but I achieved flight!

Err, wait... I'm actually lifting now. *cuts engine and taps "s"* and now I'm actually gliding. *Tries turning* sheesh, I actually am banking turns now... tries to stop.... and now I'm wildly spinning out of control and *plop* there goes the engine. **SPLASH**

Aside from still being able to spin the plane after removing the rudder (and that the game seems to want an enormous rudder for something built on a single body)... the flight model wasn't nearly as terrible as it was WITH those heavy rotpower laden cockpits... it was actually enjoyable to toy with, for once.

Why does SQUAD hide the "decent flight characteristics" under all that RotPower?

*And yeah, the instant I swapped out the jet engine for a turbo-jet engine, the plane rushed to ~1.6 km/s, and became extremely difficult to keep Kerbin bound.

[(An Original Name)]

Um... what?

[Nao]

Have you tried building a plane out of lander can ? It's hilarious as the controls fight each other, and there is a certain speed at witch there is almost no control

But i agree planes tend to feel better when the rot controls have small effect on the plane, its more apparent with very heavy planes that have a lot of control surfaces

relevant pic:

[rodion_herrera]

This only goes to show that capsule/cockpit torque has to have a TOGGLE switch. This has to be a dev suggestion once and for all, for as a joystick flyer, I too don't like the snap-roll tendencies due to the built-in torque in capsules and cockpits.

[Fel]

Um... what?

I experienced something that was much closer to "True Flight" after turning RotPower (a value that is on all command pods / probes / cockpits to control internal rotation) to 0.

That deadly spinout would never happen with a plane the size I was flying under the power of RotPower, but it shows that the underlying "aerodynamics" are actually there; I even managed to get a stall, although I had to use like 1/3rd throttle. Basically, the flight characteristics were much better than I had believed them to be.

This only goes to show that capsule/cockpit torque has to have a TOGGLE switch. This has to be a dev suggestion once and for all, for as a joystick flyer, I too don't like the snap-roll tendencies due to the built-in torque in capsules and cockpits.

Personally, I'd still claim that they supply far too much torque than is feasibly possible, even for a game... but that torque causes so many problems in "non-rocket devices" that I have to agree with you here.

[Nao]

What about docking mode? I never tried it for planes but, it's ability to turn off rotation forces is invaluable for rovers in low gravity. (can't open KSP now to check)

[rhoark]

AmpYear lets you toggle rotpower and ASAS.

[DisarmingBaton5]

What about docking mode? I never tried it for planes but, it's ability to turn off rotation forces is invaluable for rovers in low gravity. (can't open KSP now to check)

Docking mode disables all voluntary rotation. Yes, it would disable cmd pod torque, but it would also disable control via control surfaces and RCS.