Space Plane air intakes not taking in full amount

[acchilde]

Why don't my air intakes take in their full amount? They seem to only intake 1/2 of their max.

For example, in the picture below, you can see that I have 4 air intakes. According to my side panel, I should be getting an intake of 4.8, but I'm only getting roughly 1/4 of that.

Can anyone explain why air intakes do this?

(It seems to do this on all air intakes, including stock)

Also, Putting the air intakes on the bottom doesn't help.

Edited September 1, 2014 by acchilde
More Information

[Taki117]

It's because they are not directly into the air flow. Because you have a positive AoA (Angle of Attack) and your intakes are on the top of your aircraft it is being blocked by the air frame. If you put them on the bottom they would be able to take in more air.

[UmbralRaptor]

The intake air gauge measures air stored at a given point in a single frame, rather than the amount taken in. I would suggest right clicking on the intakes and/or engines for additional info.

edit:

It's because they are not directly into the air flow. Because you have a positive AoA (Angle of Attack) and your intakes are on the top of your aircraft it is being blocked by the air frame. If you put them on the bottom they would be able to take in more air.

I'm pretty sure that you can't block intakes with stock aerodynamics, and I don't see any FAR instrumentation.

[Wanderfound]

Agreed with both of the above. Realistic aero means that placement and angle of attack affect intake function; stock aero means that realism hides under the table weeping.

And, as usual: give FAR/NEAR a try. Aircraft are much more fun when they fly instead of swim.

[acchilde]

Putting them on the bottom didn't work either. Here's a more detailed screenshot.

[acchilde]

Putting them on the bottom didn't help. And I right-clicked the part to show you that it doesn't intake its full potential.

[DeMatt]

Two reasons:

1. You're not moving through the air. Air intakes collect more air the faster you're moving. You'll note that your "flying" screenshot has your air intakes 33% full, while your "parked" screenshot has them 24% full.
   
2. You're using the air. Air intakes have very small "storage" of IntakeAir; it's supposed to be used immediately, after all.
   

I'll also add the guess that these "Structural Intakes" are intended for high-altitude, high-speed flight, and you're therefore not using them where and how they're most effective. Anyways, it's not a problem unless your engines are running out of air - which they don't seem to be.

[acchilde]

Two reasons:

1. You're not moving through the air. Air intakes collect more air the faster you're moving. You'll note that your "flying" screenshot has your air intakes 33% full, while your "parked" screenshot has them 24% full.
   
2. You're using the air. Air intakes have very small "storage" of IntakeAir; it's supposed to be used immediately, after all.
   

Then why does the game even tell you the maximum amount that it can intake if it will never get that high? I just tried flying really fast and low (over mach 1, almost mach 2) and it still never got over 50% intake.

[Wanderfound]

Then why does the game even tell you the maximum amount that it can intake if it will never get that high? I just tried flying really fast and low (over mach 1, almost mach 2) and it still never got over 50% intake.

Mach 1 isn't very fast by spaceplane standards (virtually parked, actually), and high-altitude intakes are designed for flying at ~30,000m. The standard spaceplane ascent pattern is to crank it up to Mach 5 and 30,000m before lighting the rockets; that's what the SP+ intakes are designed for.

If you just want to play around at low altitude (nothing wrong with that, plenty of fun to be had), use basic jet engines and circular intakes. At the moment, you're annoyed that your Ferrari isn't working well as a Jeep.

[acchilde]

Thanks. That actually makes a lot of sense.

[cantab]

That intakes even store air at all is down to a game limitation. It's just needed as a buffer for the air to go from the intakes that make it into the engines that consume it. As long as it's not empty your jets will be running fine.

[Red Iron Crown]

Intake air really needs fixing. Shouldn't be storable, shouldn't be allocated based on part placement order, gauge in the resource panel should make more sense.

[Claw]

Since it was mentioned, intakes are effected by their face angle relative to the wind stream (or loosely, AoA). Placement doesn't matter since they can't be blocked, but if the face is off from directly prograde, their efficiency is reduced. This can be significant when eeking out the last buts of jet power at high altitude.

That doesn't really answer the question though. You'll have to be higher and faster (but not too high) to see the bar fill up, but then it's just showing you excess air. The game shows you excess air so that you know when you are getting close to running out.

And I agree, it needs a rework.

Cheers,

-Claw