End of Runway lights - move them

[KerikBalm]

I'm rather annoyed with the lights at the end of the runway.

I've built quite a few very large SSTO lifters to launch my mission payloads... but it can't lift off until the ground drops off at the ned of the runway

- if I can't keep the thing nearly exactly centered, it collides with the lights...

So I suggest moving those lights to be out of the way. Don't put obstacles at the end of the runway

[DaRocketCat]

I like 'em, it adds a challenge and varies the scenery.

[vger]

What I can't understand is, why is it that so often, I can make a vehicle that flies without a problem when the runway drops off, but I can't get the darned thing to go into the air BEFORE the runway drops off? It's almost like they're magnetized to the tarmac until there's no more tarmac.

[The Destroyer]

What I can't understand is, why is it that so often, I can make a vehicle that flies without a problem when the runway drops off, but I can't get the darned thing to go into the air BEFORE the runway drops off? It's almost like they're magnetized to the tarmac until there's no more tarmac.

perhaps because you have no surface for your landing gear to stop you from pulling up, perhaps your landing gear are too far back.

[austin4050]

perhaps because you have no surface for your landing gear to stop you from pulling up, perhaps your landing gear are too far back.

I agree with this completly! Many times have I built a craft that flies perfectly but never takes off. However if you move the wheels just after the CoM/CoL you should be good!

However I also agree with that, I frequently end um smashing into the lights at the end, but I do not think they should be moved, it adds a challenge and a little game to avoid the lights.

[Capt Snuggler]

I agree with this completly! Many times have I built a craft that flies perfectly but never takes off. However if you move the wheels just after the CoM/CoL you should be good!.

your right but one extra step i have learned, use tweakables to empty all your fuel and THEN place your landing gear behind the C.O.M.

that way at the end of your mission when your tanks are dry your plane wont fall on its bum.

[Amaroq]

So there's actually something really funny here -- if you know your "can climb" speed, you can just raise the gear once you're past that speed and applying up-force. Surely not the way a commercial jetliner would work, but a very Kerbal way to get airborne!

[boomerdog2000]

I'm for moving them, nearly clipped them on one of my prototype SSTO launches. They don't seem to serve any real purpose and the runway already has smaller landing lights on the side. Comparatively those ones on the end are huge.

[Jouni]

If a plane can't take off from a long runway like that, the design is obviously broken. It's just nice that there are some hazards waiting at the end of the runway, if the plane can't gain at least a couple of meters of altitude before that.

On the other hand, I'd like to have some short mountain runways that are designed to work like that. The runway would be too short for most planes, so they would start falling when the runway ends, until they can gain enough speed to start climbing. There are some nice examples of airports like that in Nepal.

[Comwarrior]

I vote to keep the lights... and add a crash net at the waters end.

[notfruit]

What if the lights would break off when you hit them too? It was said that buildings at the KSC could be damaged. Why not runway lights?

[BudgetHedgehog]

I'm still waiting for an ALS..

[KerikBalm]

If a plane can't take off from a long runway like that, the design is obviously broken. It's just nice that there are some hazards waiting at the end of the runway, if the plane can't gain at least a couple of meters of altitude before that.

On the other hand, I'd like to have some short mountain runways that are designed to work like that. The runway would be too short for most planes, so they would start falling when the runway ends, until they can gain enough speed to start climbing. There are some nice examples of airports like that in Nepal.

I'd like to see you make an all stock-zero part clipping SSTO that gets 83 tons to orbit, that can take off before the end of the runway.

Maybe if he had bigger landing gear... and maybe with reenforced joints I should rexamine the design.... but the thing was pretty fragile with a full load, and due to its size, it couldn't raise its nose much without the back of it colliding with the terrain.

I need that dropoff to get the nose raised and to get it into a climb.

Having obstacles on the runway for a "challenge" is just stupid.

[Kasuha]

There are much more obtrusive things at the end of real life runways so I believe the KSP runway is still on a very forgiving side.

The one thing I think KSP should change is the way it deploys a plane on runway. If you make a plane with uneven landing gear (to get the body of the plane slightly inclined to increase lift on runway) it drops the plane on the runway from height and things start breaking off. And of course, it would be nice to have some bigger landing gear for bigger planes because what we have looks ugly when placed on girders.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Kasuha

[Jouni]

I'd like to see you make an all stock-zero part clipping SSTO that gets 83 tons to orbit, that can take off before the end of the runway.

Maybe if he had bigger landing gear... and maybe with reenforced joints I should rexamine the design.... but the thing was pretty fragile with a full load, and due to its size, it couldn't raise its nose much without the back of it colliding with the terrain.

I need that dropoff to get the nose raised and to get it into a climb.

Having obstacles on the runway for a "challenge" is just stupid.

Almost all real runways have some kind of obstacles as well. Often the immediate obstacle is just grass, but even that can be quite deadly, if the plane hits it at 70 m/s. Real planes sometimes use rocket boosters, if the runway is not long enough to take off with a heavy load. That's certainly a viable option in KSP as well, if you can't otherwise make the plane take off reliably.

[Kasuha]

I'd like to see you make an all stock-zero part clipping SSTO that gets 83 tons to orbit, that can take off before the end of the runway.

Maybe if he had bigger landing gear... and maybe with reenforced joints I should rexamine the design.... but the thing was pretty fragile with a full load, and due to its size, it couldn't raise its nose much without the back of it colliding with the terrain.

I need that dropoff to get the nose raised and to get it into a climb.

Having obstacles on the runway for a "challenge" is just stupid.

Lights at runway ends are not there for any kind of challenge. They're there for aesthetic purposes. KSC would look dull if there were not all kinds of tiny details that make up the atmosphere. And some kind of lights (KSP ones are on the very unobtrusive side) are part of it.

There's no part of the game which would make you to build an SSTO to get 83 tons to orbit in order to progress further. That was completely your own challenge that you made yourself for yourself.

Any pre-existing game features (including runway lights) are also part of any challenge you put ahead of yourself. If you fail your challenge because you did not account for them, it's not the game's fault. It's just because you did not take something into account. Maybe the challenge you did put ahead of yourself was just too hard.

[Capt Snuggler]

I think there are a few ways to help with your issue.

Space plane parts need to be revised. the textures are fuzzy, IVAs are missing, parts are missing functionality, models are not to the same visual standard is the rest of KSP. once this has been done I think many issue people have with space planes will be resolved.

A larger landing gear should be available as stock (don't think we will see it until the space plane parts are revised)

You should place your landing gear just behind your COM. the wings will get better leverage.

There's no part of the game which would make you to build an SSTO to get 83 tons to orbit in order to progress further. That was completely your own challenge that you made yourself for yourself.

right on!

[KerikBalm]

Most runways are longer than the KSP ones too, and designed for routine flight of mainly subsonic aircraft.

A space center would basically be operating nothing but prototypes and extremely limited production specialist planes.

Certainly if the mission director called for it, the glide slope indicator lights could be removed.

And again, for very large spaceplanes, placing the landing gear near the CoG is not sufficient to enable liftoff.

A large part of the problem is the "wonky" steering and difficulty keeping it just going straight despite everything being symetric.

When the hardest part of launching the SSTO is keeping it straight enough down the runway so that it doesn't hit the lights at the end of the runway, I think there is a problem - given the space focus, the challenge should be in the high atmosphere flight -> orbital injection maneuvers.

Yes, details are nice - simply move themfarther out to the sides, or into little recessed holes, or on the downward slope of the run way, or remove their collision box.

[Nuke]

just move the lights down range abit.

[Jouni]

Most runways are longer than the KSP ones too, and designed for routine flight of mainly subsonic aircraft.

A space center would basically be operating nothing but prototypes and extremely limited production specialist planes.

Certainly if the mission director called for it, the glide slope indicator lights could be removed.

Supersonic planes generally require shorter runways to take off than subsonic civilian planes with underpowered engines.

The Airbus A380 is the biggest passenger plane ever built, with maximum take-off weight of 575 tonnes. It's powered by four turbofan engines. Each of those engines can produce 350-375 kN of thrust, depending on the model. Based on these numbers, the TWR of a fully-loaded A380 is 0.25-0.27 at take-off. In KSP, we get similar numbers by using one basic jet per 60 tonnes of total mass or one turbojet per 45 tonnes of total mass.

If your plane can't take off before the end of the runway, you may be trying to build something that kerbal technology isn't up to. You may also be restricting your designs arbitrarily. Have you, for example, tried using sepratrons or even SRBs for lifting the nose for take-off?

[KerikBalm]

Well, using real life stats doesn't really work with KSP's bad aerodynamics model.

The drag coefficients are way to high, and lift is proportional to the airspeed, rather than the square of airspeed... this makes a huge difference.

And supersonic vs subsonic ... sure, you can get any relationship you want if you look only at one model.

Why not a C-130 hercules against a F-101 voodoo?

A harrier against a SR-71... etc.

An F-4 against a cessna 150...

Yes I've tried SRBs and sepratrons in some designs.... that is not the problem here. The problem is that with the small size of the landing gear, I simply cannot angle the plane up much at all without the rear contacting the terrain... the terrain needs to drop away enough for the AoA to get high enough on takeoff.

Its normally not a problem, but due to the bad way vehicles handle on the ground, it can be a problem... leaving me simply annoyed thinking "what idiot put those there"

Then I restart, and if I manage to keep it on the centerline, have a successful takeoff and orbital insertion.

If the dropoff wasn't there to be used, then it would be irrelevant... but they've put that very useful dropoff there at the end of the runway, and then just annoying obstacles that combine with weird handling on wheels to make it simply frustrating, not some fun challenge.

[Jouni]

I mean that supersonic planes, as well as KSP spaceplanes, usually have much higher TWR than the civilian planes that require long runways. By the time the plane has accelerated to 100 m/s, pretty much anything that can fly will take off, both in KSP and in the real world.

If low ground clearance is a problem, you can uses structural parts to get higher clearance, or make the hull sloped behind the rear landing gear. Many real planes use the latter approach.

[Starwhip]

I have an idea: Add a brick wall at the end. It forces you to build correctly

The lights are fine, and I find it horribly amusing when the jet car I just built slams into one at Mach 2.5

[Kasuha]

Yes I've tried SRBs and sepratrons in some designs.... that is not the problem here. The problem is that with the small size of the landing gear, I simply cannot angle the plane up much at all without the rear contacting the terrain... the terrain needs to drop away enough for the AoA to get high enough on takeoff.

Its normally not a problem, but due to the bad way vehicles handle on the ground, it can be a problem... leaving me simply annoyed thinking "what idiot put those there"

Then I restart, and if I manage to keep it on the centerline, have a successful takeoff and orbital insertion.

If the dropoff wasn't there to be used, then it would be irrelevant... but they've put that very useful dropoff there at the end of the runway, and then just annoying obstacles that combine with weird handling on wheels to make it simply frustrating, not some fun challenge.

I completely agree with you that the game would deserve better aerodynamic model. I also completely agree with you that it would be nice to have more aircraft parts, including higher landing gear. There are mods providing both, but as a non-mod-user I can also understand if you don't want to use these mods and want to stick to stock parts and stock aerodynamics.

Your request for these lights to be removed is completely legitimate. It is the purpose of this part of forums to provide players a place where they can put their ideas how to make the game better and reducing some obstacles making flying your airplanes easier definitely does count as improving the quality of the game for you.

I just don't think it is necessary to remove them or that they are serious obstacle. That's my opinion on the matter. It by no way means your opinion on it is wrong, it just means we don't agree on something. Neither of the opinions is better or worse and there is no point in trying to convince each other that either opinion is wrong and should be changed.

It is possible developers will change those lights in some future release, or they will leave them as they are. In the meantime the best we can do is to make sure we avoid them when launching our airplanes, one way or another.

I think there's no reason to further discuss legitimity of your request. It is completely legitimate and fine, regardless of what others think about the matter.

We may discuss, though, what could be done with your plane so they are not that much of an obstacle they appear to be now.

[TarkinLarson]

I partially agree with you with perhaps moving the lights or making them shorter or into the runway like catseyes style lights. However there would normally be obstacles at the end of the runway at 'normal' airfields like trees and pylons etc. I too have often created things that struggle to take off, but have found this to do with the landing gear being too far back of the CoM.

Could do with them fancy lights at the beginning of the runway that tell you if you're coming in too high or low. I think they're (after a quick google) Precision approach path indicators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_approach_path_indicator). You get two red and two white when you're just right. Other variations indicate you're too high or low.

I seem to remember the flying instructor having a good laugh whilst asking the tower to turn them off whilst I was coming into land once. So having them turn off would be good too, but they could help no-end with having an optimal approach angle especially for new people and those who tend to struggle with depth perception in a 2d (as in the game is a 3d projection onto a 2d screen with no 'real' depth perception unless you use 3d glasses etc) game.

Edited April 17, 2014 by TarkinLarson
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