What we really need for planes now!!

[rakutenshi]

Blackmail Harvester into letting Bac9 make his modpack standard... .. since he's already staff. (love the new space center, same guy)

[Exothermos]

Bigger wings

Mk 3 cargo bay

More fuselage and adapter options

Tweaked Air intake model / more intakes

then obviously Aerodynamic model tweaks. But mostly just to Frontal Area, and air intake stuff and I would be happy.

[Dunbaratu]

There is no such thing as stalling in the game, so your descriptions don't make any sense.

The problem is that there's no weathervane effect resisting any rotation away from the direction you're traveling. The lack of that allows you to flip around in ways real planes just can't. Not only is flipping around backward less of a problem in real life, but it's a problem that CAN'T happen at ALL in a real plane. And THAT is all about NOT stalling in this game. In a real plane if you pull up too high you stall. In this game you just flip over backward and start thrusting retrograde. And since banking doesn't cause turning, you end up having to pull your direction with the rotation keys, increasing the chance of this utterly artificial simulation artifact flip-around problem.

Planes in the game don't fly. They're just rockets with wings on that behave almost but not entirely unlike wings.

That's the singlemost biggest problem with planes in the game. Until that gets fixed with an aerodynamic model, the rest of the issues are frankly irrelevant, because that one problem is what makes planes so pointless as they are now.

Also, fixing areodynamics, when it eventually happens, will break any existing designs anyway.

[Comrade Jenkens]

When the aerodynamics and spaceplanes do get overhauled, i'm planning to convert my fleet into SSTOs. I'm not a fan of discarding most of the ship on the way up.

At the moment that's just not feasible due to the current model.

[Mr Shifty]

So clue me in, what are you guys doing with it?

Look at real world space stuff. One of the most challenging feats for real world astronauts was de-orbiting and landing the Shuttle. It had to glide in unpowered from orbit. Because it had a large glide surface, it was difficult to bleed off orbital speed in the upper atmosphere; they had to bank back and forth; if they just tried to force the nose down it would generate enough lift to throw them back into orbit. Once into the atmosphere, Shuttle pilots had to control their glideslope and speed over thousands of miles before making the final turn and steep descent into precision landing. There's an experience that a good atmospheric model could help capture. It's easy to stick parachutes on a capsule; try de-orbiting a re-usable space-craft into atmosphere.

[Arkasai]

We? Speak for yourself.

I think it's safe to assume 'we' does not apply to you. Unless you're speaking for allmappedout, in which case that's a self defeating statement.

ON TOPIC:

Most of the stuff listed in the OP has been addressed through mods/workarounds and will eventually find their way into the stock game. However I have a few ideas:

-Flight suit with integrated parachute (I'd be ok with just a retextured space suit, where the RCS pack becomes the parachute)

-A real hangar to display your planes and rockets just like an aerospace museum (many ways you could go about this, I prefer full sandbox but you could also have it auto generate over the course of a campaign)

-In game center of mass/lift/thrust toggles. Even better would be if the ship magically moved fuel around for me in attempts to keep the center of mass where I originally intended.

-In game ability to set max thrust of an engine/RCS thruster

-Controlled testing environment (nothing extraneous loaded, just an empty Matrix style white room to do experiments) like a wind tunnel, but you can control atmosphere, gravity, temp, etc. This would greatly increase my design workflow because I often hit a stumbling block and have to design a test rig before proceeding with the rest of the build.

I think most of those have been requested but they're some of the more nagging features I want.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Arkasai

[Nuke]

only thing i really feel is missing is flaps. to give better lift and handling at lower speed. so many of my space planes dont take flight until they are completely out of runway and i think having flaps would really help here.

[ShadyAct]

I think it's safe to assume 'we' does not apply to you. Unless you're speaking for allmappedout, in which case that's a self defeating statement.

Are you also speaking for that guy? I took we to mean the other people in the thread, which seemed like a safe assumption. But some guy named after an anime character got mad for some reason.

ON TOPIC: There's already a mod that can keep a certain center of mass. You should use that form at the top right that says 'Advanced Search' more often. Preferably so much that you'd have no time to post. And there's a mod that adds parachutes but I guess you want this stuff for stock. Is that a safe assumption?

If more people request the same feature it'll just make it seem more 'in-demand'.

Edited August 2, 2013 by ShadyAct

[Kim Bruning]

* With aircraft, the rudders sometimes turn the wrong way when rolling, sending the aircraft into a slip. (can be fixed with FAR, and setting the rudder to Yaw only... but it'd be nice to have this in stock). The reason this happens is because on rockets, you might have say 4 control surfaces at the tail: 2 for pitch, 2 for yaw: and if you twist all 4 the same way, you get roll. On an aircraft, you can't have a control surface sticking out the bottom dragging along the runway, so you delete that. Now when you roll, the rudder turns exactly the wrong way. :-/

* A decent cockpit from which we can actually see the ground AND my instruments while landing (speed and (radar) altitude are vital)

* Flaps, airbrakes. FAR has flaps and airbrakes, b9 has airbrakes and 1 turbofan with thrust reversers.

- One thing flaps are useful for is that you actually can fly at a lower angle-of-attack, aka your nose doesn't point so high, aka, you can see more of the ground. You can *almost* land from cockpit view in FAR. Unfortunately you lose sight of the ground when flaring (the one moment in time when you really REALLY need to see the ground :-P )

[Kim Bruning]

So clue me in, what are you guys doing with it?

KSP is not only the world's greatest space sim sandbox, it's also the greatest flight sim sandbox. There's all kinds of things you can do, and there are many easter eggs on kerbin to explore. Also there's the whole concept of space shuttles, SSTO craft, winged capsules for better cross-range capabilities, etc etc. It's a whole extra dimension!

[leax256]

7. There's the hitchhiker cabin.

but it's not plane shaped.

[Ernest3.14]

but it's not plane shaped.

This. Is. So frustrating.

[leax256]

This. Is. So frustrating.

what's frustrating?

[Ernest3.14]

The hitchhiker cabin not being the right shape...

[Captain Sierra]

Just about everything listed here can be aquired in 2 mods. Go get B9 and FAR. Better aerodynamics and all the plane part goodness you desire. Then build a crew shuttle SSTO like this: