The Atmosphere

[whiterafter]

So I've extensively flown in Flight Simulator 10 and in real life, but everytime I fly in KSP it seems off. In real life when you turn the plane the plane goes the same way, but KSP seems to be hugging the velocity vector and making turns slow and confusing. Rolls seem to be out of realism. KSP is Definetely a space game but many people are interested in the flying aspect, which seems to so off to me.

[Panzerbeard]

KSP's current stock implentation of aerodynamics is... lacking, to say the least, and can cause some pretty unintuitive behavior when flying. It's being improved for the next update, but if realism is your thing I'd recommend FAR: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/20451-0-90-Ferram-Aerospace-Research-v0-14-6-12-27-14

[KerikBalm]

Its a combination of reaction wheels torquing the craft, wings that produce far too little lift at higher speeds, and that many parts have drag that doesn't depend on their orientation.

FAR or NEAR are definitely needed, we'll see how stock is after the next update.

[NikkyD]

The game does not calculate lift and drag individually for each part but for the "rocket" as a whole.

[StarFox]

The FAR and NEAR mods help the areodynamics modeling of KSP, but as a long time flight sim player (about 35 years) and private pilot (12 years), I find the airplane portion of KSP... unsatisfying.

Just add more boosters!

[Northstar1989]

You're talking about stock aerodynamics- a system where a feather and a bowling ball will literally hit the ground at the *exact* same time if dropped from *any* altitude (drag is directly proportional to mass in stock aero). Where biplane wings produce *exactly* twice the lift and drag of single-wings because wings have no interactions with each other. Where breaking the sound barrier has no meaning, and swept wings are useless. It's a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, unintuitive system, and you shouldn't expect any behavior from it to correspond to real life. Use FAR instead.

Regards,

Northstar

[Red Iron Crown]

The game does not calculate lift and drag individually for each part but for the "rocket" as a whole.

That's not so, forces like lift, drag, gravity and thrust are calculated for and applied to individual parts.