Why is there a conflict of interest at all between realistic and unrealistic aerodynamics?

[klgraham1013]

Throwing in my story here:

I stopped playing KSP because it was way too realistic.

I only kept playing because I installed mods that let me screw around on Kerbin, hence my 200 hours. Only 10 or so were spent playing stock, and only 100 or so were spent actually playing for real and seriously. Instead of screwing around testing things.

The rest of the time was spent testing, planning and learning. Not actually enjoying the game (And the enjoyment came from the random things I came up with to do), learning, planning and testing. But not playing.

Meanwhile, I can pick up Invisible Inc and play for a while without learning or needing to learn anything. And have a lot more fun.

Maybe KSP just isn't for you. Really, at the moment it's not for me either. We both rely on mods to create a game we want to play. In your case, you've installed mods to make it easier. In mine, to make it something "reasonably realistic." At this point, I don't even want to use the "R" word anymore. It holds so much baggage at this point.

I just hope KSP 0.90 doesn't become Counterstrike 1.6. The last KSP that was FAR capable. The last bastion for gamers who craved "semi-realism" but, instead, got Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.

the melodrama is real

[Basilo1146]

You just contradicted yourself, what most people expect aerodynamics to be like, is what aerodynamics really are, unless of course you taught yourself aircraft design from KSP's current aerodynamics.

Well, people don't reasonably expect aircraft to spin out of control if you slightly modify the positions of their control surfaces, as they do in FAR and NEAR. It actually happens, but it's not intuitive. I guess what I mean is be realistic, but not ridiculously so.

[liweih]

If they add stock fairing too, good, very good. Otherwise, stop it.

[Hodo]

Well, people don't reasonably expect aircraft to spin out of control if you slightly modify the positions of their control surfaces, as they do in FAR and NEAR. It actually happens, but it's not intuitive. I guess what I mean is be realistic, but not ridiculously so.

Unless you have never seen an aircraft before or even glanced at YouTube for a video on how wings work then yeah you're going to have problem. FAR is not that hard, no really it isn't that hard. If you are having a craft flip around then look at your design. Your CoL is ahead of your CoM, it is either shifting or is just wrong because you learned wrong to start. I am not going to turn this into a debate here but in short you don't know what you are talking about.

[razark]

It actually happens, but it's not intuitive.

People should learn to expect that what they expect is wrong when they don't put some effort into learning about a subject.

I wouldn't expect to say "this seems right" and perform an appendectomy without studying some anatomy, at the very least.

[Blaf]

[...] It actually happens, but it's not intuitive. [...].

IMHO this is not the problem of aerodynamics model, but more of a UI problem of not providing player all the necessary information, resulting in player not being aware of what is wrong with his design.

[KerikBalm]

IMO, one of the most frustrating things about spaceplanes, particuary with FAR, is the level of precision in construction required.

Rockets are easy enough to make everything balanced.... even asymetrical designs its easy enough to get the COM and COT to be close enough that the engine gimbal can make it work (and with low thrust, the reaction wheels will do it).

But when tiny changes can make a design go from working, to a disaster... maybe not so fun.

Likewise, maybe flying in the "coffin corner" isn't so fun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_%28aerodynamics%29

I haven't exactly experienced that with far, but I have had spaceplanes where the AoA needed to maintain altitude is really close to the AoA at which it spins out of control.

If we could have realistic principles, without requiring realistic precision, I think it would be great.

Realistically, it wouldn't really work to peice together a spaceplane out of preshaped wingsegments.

We don't have tools to add a bit of twist/washout to the wings, we cant change airfoil shapes, airfoil thickness, etc across a wing.

Our hands are tied in building, and the building method is imprecise, so the aero model needs to be tolerant of certain levels of imprecision.

We can't modify the component parts to get better weight distribution, which makes the balancing act even harder.

We can't adjust fuel drain to maintain balance.

Maybe, for example, it can assume a certain level of washout, or there can be a tweakable washout rating for the wing, without actually trying to progressively rotate peices 1/10th of a degree at a time.... etc.

Given the simplistic way we build things, it needs to be tolerant of imprecision.