Procedural fairings.Do they do anything?

[SSSPutnik]

Apart from aesthetics, do these do anything in terms of drag reduction etc?

Edited December 22, 2013 by SSSPutnik

[Markus Reese]

They are entirely automatic visual only. Put in because many rockets looked silly with the exposed engines.

[Murph]

I'm not 100% certain, but I think they do help with FAR drag. Even if you don't use FAR, they do give the warm fuzzy from trying to do it realistically.

[J.Random]

Yes, they do. First, they're compatible with FAR, as far as I know. Second, they have automatic internal struts (togglable in editor), keeping payload from wobbling.

[Hodo]

PWings and Procedural Dynamics have a huge affect in FAR. But very little in the stock KSP pea soup atmosphere model.

[SSSPutnik]

The reduction in load wobble alone sounds like a bonus.

Thanks to those with answers!

[Mystique]

Is autostrut option actually working? I tried adding only 1/4 cone to see how they work, but it just applied that cone part and that's all, no struts appeared. Or they work only when you make complete cone?

[Champ]

Is autostrut option actually working? I tried adding only 1/4 cone to see how they work, but it just applied that cone part and that's all, no struts appeared. Or they work only when you make complete cone?

I think this option doesn't work, or is not activated by default. In 0.22 i had a rocket on which the payload was not strutted at all before I put the fairings. Launch was quite funny... The payload wobbled so much that it went through the fairings (no collision ??) and finally the rocket was destructed.

[J.Random]

They aren't visualized, but believe me, they're there. To test it, you can launch something with insane TWR. While fairing is there (even the single piece of it), there will be no wobbling on rotation or contraction when you thrust it up. Drop the fairing and your payload will want to implode into itself. The key to toggle it was in the description of the base part, I believe.