Stock plane control surfaces are the bomb (not in a good way)

[S1gmoid]

Is it just me, or are stock control surfaces completely broken? From what I gather, KSP just included a spaceplane mod, and still, building planes feels like trying to build something by fitting LEGO and Playmobile blocks together (actual experience from when I was a kid).

I absolutely love the way you can build rockets in KSP... however, I've recently started experimenting with planes, and it's the total opposite.

The control surfaces all feel like they were never meant to go on these wings. They are bulky, the wrong length, do not snap (or rather, snap the wrong way), and in the end, do precious little in actually controlling the plane (in my limited experience - ymmv).

Honestly, it would be really cool if there were wings with built-in control surfaces. Or generally just some better wing+control surface solution. Any pointers?

[NathanKell]

FAR + Procedural Wings

Note that DYJ needs to release a patch for it to work with FAR 14.3 though...

[Hyomoto]

As for stock, yes. I mean if you look at the crazy things people have built AND fly in stock, there are lots of options. I personally am not very good at it for the reasons you just said, and it's much harder to cobble together a wing out of premade pieces which is why I recommend you use procedural wings if you intend to do any flying. Of course, if you intend to do that you might as well drop stock altogether and throw FAR, AJE and DRE in there and get a much better aerodynamic simulation going.

But, here is a plane built in stock. Sorry about the sizes, these were already uploaded to Steam and I have a 1080 display. You have to use a bit more imagination and planning, but it's most certainly possible:

This is the same plane after I researched procedural wings:

As for tips, if you want to build planes and spaceplanes, honestly mods are the best place to start. I honestly wish I had better advice, but I used to hate flying and building planes in stock. With the aforementioned mods, I honestly have gotten addicted to just flying around Kerbin. The best I can offer is flying tips which the most important is learn to use trim (alt+direction) and use CAPS LOCK to use the precision control. You can get pretty good and consistent control over your planes this way without trying to brute force it by using SAS.

[S1gmoid]

Thanks. I already have FAR and AJE installed. Procedural wings looks cool, but it seems I need to wait until it gets updated for the newest FAR version. Does it include procedural control surfaces too? I'll definitely check it out.

(BTW for the life of me I cannot understand why everything tries to attach in weird angles to wings... From landing gears through lights to control surfaces, everything wants to attach in the absolutely most weird way possible.)

[NathanKell]

Ah, right after my own heart.

Pwings should be up to date within a day or so; I already sent the fix to DYJ.

Some examples of what you can do with Pwings, PParts, tweakscale, and (of course) FAR/AJE/etc.

Early jet.

F-4J Phantom performance, hopefully not F-4J Phantom looks.

Turboramjet, Mach 5 or so. Also HTP/Kero rockets for X-15-style zoom climbs.

[Wanderfound]

Working fine for me:

As others have said, if you want planes to behave sensibly in KSP, you need FAR or NEAR.

[Axelord FTW]

(BTW for the life of me I cannot understand why everything tries to attach in weird angles to wings... From landing gears through lights to control surfaces, everything wants to attach in the absolutely most weird way possible.)

There's this thing in KSP I do not really understand but here's what I worked out about it.

Attach wings at 90 degree angle from the centerline of a part (perpendicular to the surface). Attach what you need to the wing. THEN offset the wing however you want.

If I try to attach something to a part that his not attached straight/flush to another part I often get the attached part to be above or bellow the texture and in some strange angle.

[S1gmoid]

As others have said, if you want planes to behave sensibly in KSP, you need FAR or NEAR.

I already have that, it's the build experience that has me bogged for now. Though flying is also significantly harder than either X-Plane or Flightgear (both dedicated flight simulators, X-Plane with an FAA certificate for training), I'm still figuring out if it's the controls or my planes just suck.

Anyway, I'm surprised you managed to launch that beast in the photo (if it's the FAR bundled big spaceplane), when I tried it, it pitched back onto its engines, nose in the air, and didn't budge an inch even at maximum thrust... (maybe it's AJE's fault...)

[Justin Kerbice]

The main issue may come from the fact Squad add SP+ parts without adding the "how-to" use them the right way as AFAIK these control surfaces has been designed to be use not the same way as C7 parts, see SP+ releases and/or dev thread.

[weeble]

FAR + Procedural Wings

Note that DYJ needs to release a patch for it to work with FAR 14.3 though...

+1 to that one. But if you're into that then you can't forget B9. All 3 of those should be essential for planes!

[Wanderfound]

I already have that, it's the build experience that has me bogged for now. Though flying is also significantly harder than either X-Plane or Flightgear (both dedicated flight simulators, X-Plane with an FAA certificate for training), I'm still figuring out if it's the controls or my planes just suck.

Anyway, I'm surprised you managed to launch that beast in the photo (if it's the FAR bundled big spaceplane), when I tried it, it pitched back onto its engines, nose in the air, and didn't budge an inch even at maximum thrust... (maybe it's AJE's fault...)

No, that's one of these: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1481656&viewfull=1#post1481656

It's not designed for AJE, but it should work fine with it.

If you have a look at the third post in my Kerbodyne thread, you'll find a guide on how to design in FAR that might be of use.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Wanderfound