Squadcast Summary (24/01/2015) - The Valentina Edition

[kujuman]

I don't understand why people feel the urge to try to limit what OTHER players might want to design. ... You shouldn't need to put any arbitrary limitations on what other players want to fly...because the laws of physics and economics implemented in the game should be what limits rocketeers...just like in real life.

Limited fairing size IS conforming to the laws of physics. One can't just cantilever a fairing 10 meters out to the side and expect some simple linear (in some number of dimensions) growth in cost/mass to be appropriate; the torsional and shear forces will accumulate pretty quickly.

No solution Squad chooses will be able to account for all edge cases, so bringing them up as examples of what players might build is not helpful (because there will ALWAYS be a limitation to a chosen implementation). P-fairings can't be balanced (cost mass etc) as well as KW style fairings; and depending on how they might get special physics, they are still point masses and point sources of drag etc, which is not ideal from a physical accuracy perspective.

As to the "urge to try to limit what OTHER players might want", this is a statement used to shame others, rather than to convince them. Not to mention that it flies contrary to how Squad has thought of KSP; it's a space Lego game, not a space Modeling Clay game. Not to mention that players can still launch ridiculous payloads even if they don't have a fairing. Or they could presumably roll their own fairings the way people have been making stock fairings forever since they're aiming to have occlusion (which I'm taking to mean that we won't need parts labeled "fairing" to act as fairings, as is the case in NEAR/FAR).

I personally don't get the urge to try to limit access to premade fairing parts to OTHER players I've seen in this thread. Forcing us to use P-fairings will limit our creativity in fitting payloads to rockets. And then we can't build launchers with payload fairings like this

Where the fairings were standardized and makes it so rockets fly the same payload to payload and look the same. Why won't you p-fairing fans allow us to build nice clean rockets like this? Just like in real life?

[Superfluous J]

I personally don't get the urge to try to limit access to premade fairing parts to OTHER players I've seen in this thread. Forcing us to use P-fairings will limit our creativity in fitting payloads to rockets.

I'm not trying to force or limit anything. I'm just saying I prefer the way Squad's doing it. If Squad only put premade fairings into the game (which is actually what I was expecting them to do. Actually that's not true. I was expecting them to not put fairings into the game at all) then I'd just mod in procedural ones and not say a peep.

And I don't see what in that picture can't be done with procedural fairings. Is it like a 2-stage thing? Or the fact that they don't bulge out 10x wider than the rocket? If it's the latter, PFairings will only bulge out as far as they need to be. Put a small probe on top of an orange tank and the fairings won't bulge out at all.

Edited January 25, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[kujuman]

As an addendum, apart from modeling time and design time (and RAM, but I hope that may possibly maybe get improved at some point), I don't see why KW style and p-fairing style fairings couldn't both be stock. save p-fairings for the end? Or make them much more expensive (2x?) than using standardized fairings? They both have their places, but my main thrust is that IF WE ONLY HAVE ONE STYLE, I think they'd best fit the game if they were KW style or dimensionally limited p-fairings.

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I'm not trying to force or limit anything. I'm just saying I prefer the way Squad's doing it. If Squad only put premade fairings into the game (which is actually what I was expecting them to do. Actually that's not true. I was expecting them to not put fairings into the game at all) then I'd just mod in procedural ones and not say a peep.

And I don't see what in that picture can't be done with procedural fairings. Is it like a 2-stage thing? Or the fact that they don't bulge out 10x wider than the rocket? If it's the latter, PFairings will only bulge out as far as they need to be. Put a small probe on top of an orange tank and the fairings won't bulge out at all.

It's the idea that p-fairings (that shape themselves, although this is making some big assumptions as to implementation) change based on payload, meaning that standard launchers aren't quite standard. One F9 launch looks the same as the next (unless there's a Dragon) because the fairings are standard sizes. This is very easy to do ensure with KW style fairings as opposed to p-fairings.

I'm not really saying that people on here desire to limit others (rather, they want what they would like best as a primary motive); if we get dimensionally limited p-fairings I'm not going to enjoy them just because I can lord it over people who have the same desires as Brotoro, I will enjoy them because I enjoy them. I imitated Brotoro's language to demonstrate that arguing for p-fairings because the other half of KSPers want to limit creativity is not an argument for p-fairings (if I can use the same "argument" against p-fairings as can be used for them, then it's just rhetoric, not an argument).

[LethalDose]

And I disagree with the concept that Career mode should have an artificial limit on the number of parts you can use. What's the justification for that? Your available funds should limit what parts you use. I'm OK with the current level of your VAB and launch pad technology limiting your rocket's size and mass.

The justification is rocket complexity, and part count is a proxy measure of complexity. Until you upgrade your VAB, you can't build more complex rockets.

I'm fine with the part count as a limit, however where they've drawn the lines for parts and mass seem freaking bizarre.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Anyway I'd like my tourist kerbals with an hawaiian-ish spacesuit.

Is it bad that this was how I've always imagined tourism contracts?

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Or here's a crazy thought: give oddly shaped fairings all the aerodynamic problems they'd have in real life.

I think people are either forgetting or just plain don't know that launching something like the pFairings first pic, the ridiculously oversized fairings, are close to impossible with improved aero. It's a fact of life - you've got this huge bulbous thing up front, it's like launching a beach ball on a firework, of course it'll spin round, you disintegrate and you have no choice but to either brute force it and take it slow and steady or chop it up into smaller sections.

Physics, by its own nature, prohibits extremely large payloads, even if aerodynamically shaped. If you have a large and dense payload, you'll need more rocket to lift it which means the payload:rocket width ratio isn't as extreme. If you have a large but light payload (such as the pFairings first pic), things will go bad and you will not go to space today. Simple as. People moaning about how unlimited pFairings will ruin game balance clearly haven't tried them with a realisticish atmo, such as the one provided by FAR or NEAR.

EDIT: Though, I'm not opposed to limited pFairings either. And kujuman made a great point that "standard launchers aren't quite standard" due to the different sizes in fairings. I'm just saying that tech or otherwisely limited fairings doesn't need to be a thing because aerodynamics will already limit payload size. In short, I agree with both sides of the argument - fixed size fairings are awesome and I wouldn't complain if they were included, and pFairings are also awesome as physics and aerodynamics limit the size anyway without a need for arbitrarily limiting size. But yeah, here's hoping for hinges so I can make a large and light payload not so large so I can actually take it to space in one go.

Edited January 25, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[Brotoro]

...I'm not really saying that people on here desire to limit others (rather, they want what they would like best as a primary motive); if we get dimensionally limited p-fairings I'm not going to enjoy them just because I can lord it over people who have the same desires as Brotoro, I will enjoy them because I enjoy them. I imitated Brotoro's language to demonstrate that arguing for p-fairings because the other half of KSPers want to limit creativity is not an argument for p-fairings (if I can use the same "argument" against p-fairings as can be used for them, then it's just rhetoric, not an argument).

I don't understand what you are saying here. How does having procedural fairings that can be made three times the diameter of the attached stage prevent anybody from having fun with the challenge of squeezing their payloads into fairings with the same diameter as the attached stage? More power to them, I say, if that's what they want to do. I love to see what people come up with. Players who build small-diameter payloads will get the advantage of better rocket performance through smaller drag, so there is certainly a good reason to go with that challenge.

But imposing size limits on fairings DOES limit what other players might want to do. Especially when we don't have hinges and in-space strutting that would be helpful in building squeezed-up payloads.

I want the simulation Physics to be the limiting factor. (Although I also like that procedural fairings should require a lot fewer parts be added to the game. I've been hitting program instabilities more often as more parts have been added to the most recent versions of KSP.)

Edited January 25, 2015 by Brotoro
Typos

[Jouni]

Physics, by its own nature, prohibits extremely large payloads, even if aerodynamically shaped. If you have a large and dense payload, you'll need more rocket to lift it which means the payload:rocket width ratio isn't as extreme. If you have a large but light payload (such as the pFairings first pic), things will go bad and you will not go to space today. Simple as. People moaning about how unlimited pFairings will ruin game balance clearly haven't tried them with a realisticish atmo, such as the one provided by FAR or NEAR.

I just launched Mushroom I in FAR. It didn't behave much worse than my average rocket, but the drag was really high.

[Brotoro]

I just launched Mushroom I in FAR. It didn't behave much worse than my average rocket, but the drag was really high...

And in real life, I've flown my PiggyBank rocket. It doesn't have gimbaled thrust and reaction wheels like your Mushroom, so I had to use large fins, of course. Unfortunately, it didn't win in the spot landing contest I flew it in, since it went higher than I expected and overshot the mark.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I just launched Mushroom I in FAR. It didn't behave much worse than my average rocket, but the drag was really high.

That is not extremely large. This is what I mean when I say 'extremely large'. Besides, your rocket has the length to help stabilise it.

And in real life, I've flown my PiggyBank rocket. It doesn't have gimbaled thrust and reaction wheels like your Mushroom, so I had to use large fins, of course. Unfortunately, it didn't win in the spot landing contest I flew it in, since it went higher than I expected and overshot the mark.

Large fins at the back means higher drag at the back which stabilises the rocket. Of course that'll fly. I'm on about not having fins at all or if you do, very small ones.

[Brotoro]

Of course it'll fly. And if I had thrust vectoring and reaction wheels in my Piggy, it could fly without fins. You CAN fly bulbous-nosed rockets. It's just engineering. The reason we don't do it on real life space launchers is because of the drag and weight penalties.

Both Jouni's Mushroom rocket and the rocket ObsessesWithKSP links to have fairings about 3.1 times the diameter of their attached stage.

[basic.syntax]

"When pigs fly!" - metaphor made real

The argument that fixed-size fairings stifle imagination or limit freedom to be wildly creative: IF Squad goes with Fixed sizes, which I prefer, (and seems unlikely based on Maxmaps squadcast comment that they may go procedural out of 'necessity') - we will still see players come up with crazy, inventive designs. So many work-arounds:

- suffer the drag, use more boosters to get it up there.

- dock smaller pieces together, as we can do now to make huge structures.

KSP offers both entertainment, and educational problem solving challenges. I do like the notion that Aero physics could put its own limits on the ease of pushing a giant beach ball up there. And that size ratio limits could be imposed. But I prefer leaving p-fairings up to the modders. The stock career mode game puts limits on craft sizes and complexity, pushing players to THINK about how to accomplish an objective, inside of those limits. I want to see that preserved as much as possible, because this isn't a space fantasy game.

The real life space program is hideously expensive, and full of engineering and physics problems that need solving. I don't think KSP should leave out this fairly simple problem / puzzle-solving opportunity, by dropping in an easy-mode work around.

[Bill Phil]

Fixed size fairings take up little room compared to many other parts, so it's not much of a difference when it comes to memory.

And, KW Rocketry seems to pull it off just fine.

[Starwaster]

That is not extremely large. This is what I mean when I say 'extremely large'. Besides, your rocket has the length to help stabilise it.

That's large?

I think I got you beat. Here's large.

(those are KWR 3.75m boosters on the sides...)

Edited January 26, 2015 by Starwaster

[liweih]

Am I in the procedural fairing argument thread?

[basic.syntax]

(cough) - welcome aboard. But, feel free to bring up another topic, the change of pace might be good for us

[DBT85]

I'm not sure I'm understanding the issue with Proc Fairings.

As I understand it, having proc fairings means you don't have to design your craft to fit inside a standard fairing. On the flip side, standard fairings limit you in ways that are unrealistic, as if a larger fairing was needed for a mission I'm sure it would be made for the mission in question provided the rocket makers said it would fly.

A Proc fairing gives you the best of both worlds, if you want to make sure that your craft don't look ridiculous with huge bulbous fairings on tiny rockets, then don't design your payloads like that. Or just include proc fairings and have a toggle box that won't allow the fairing to extend more than 25% beyond the diameter of the proc fairing base being used at the time and include it as a default option on normal or hard mode.

If Stevie McStevevison wants to try and launch a 5m wide fairing on top of a 1.25m rocket then let the game physics determine if it will work or not IF it's modelling things accurately then it will or won't fly accurately. It's not exactly hard for you to play to your own set of rules.

[basic.syntax]

@DBT85 -

"standard fairings limit you in ways that are unrealistic" - the same can be said for the early career mode tiers, that limit players to a handful of parts, mass limit, and a rocket that can't be taller or wider than some number. If you want to get to the Mun under those restrictions, you have to do some creative thinking, experimenting, and trade off one part for another. I think that is good for the game that happens inside the SPH/VAB, and makes it a game, with a puzzle to solve.

All you have after proc fairings are in, is the "getting it to fly" problem, as you describe. I think fixed fairings and cargo bays continue what is started with career mode limitations, and are the right direction for Stock game parts.

[sgt_flyer]

i'd say, let's see what we will have once the patch is ready regarding fairings - procedural and fixed sizes are not mutually exclusive. We could very well end up having only a few fairings parts, with the possibility to choose within fixed sizes and shapes like in KW rocketry but we would only need a few parts which can be tweaked (so less part cluttering)

for ex : the fairing adapter can be only set to three base plate sizes, 1.25m, 2.5m or 3.75m, with the possibility for each to choose 'inline' or 'wide' configurations with a maximum height avaible for each base plate size.

[Jouni]

A Proc fairing gives you the best of both worlds, if you want to make sure that your craft don't look ridiculous with huge bulbous fairings on tiny rockets, then don't design your payloads like that. Or just include proc fairings and have a toggle box that won't allow the fairing to extend more than 25% beyond the diameter of the proc fairing base being used at the time and include it as a default option on normal or hard mode.

The difference between procedural and fixed fairings is in some sense similar to the difference between an unbalanced game and a balanced game.

You don't need game balance to make the game the game fun, interesting, and challenging. You can always choose to avoid the unbalanced aspects of the game and play it in a way that makes it challenging. Some people just prefer that the game forces the challenges upon them, and enjoy playing balanced games more than unbalanced ones. Maybe they want to try their best to beat the game, instead of having to remind themselves constantly to avoid the cheesy stuff.

In a similar way, you can always choose to use procedural fairings to emulate fixed-size fairings. Some people just find fixed fairings more fun than procedural fairings with a bunch of self-imposed rules.

[Bill Phil]

In real life, the payload has to work with the rocket, not the other way around. So very few new fairings are made, that would be too expensive...

[Vindaloo]

Can't wait for this update, it will be awesome!

And YAY! to female Kerbals, that will make my daughter very happy!

[Daze]

In real life, the payload has to work with the rocket, not the other way around. So very few new fairings are made, that would be too expensive...

In real life Squad would have used a sort of FAR

In real life Kerbin would be 10 times bigger

In real life we would have TAC and DRE

(PS: Actually i would love to see a realistic stock version of KSP)

[cicatrix]

And I disagree with the concept that Career mode should have an artificial limit on the number of parts you can use. What's the justification for that? Your available funds should limit what parts you use. I'm OK with the current level of your VAB and launch pad technology limiting your rocket's size and mass.

This! Size and mass, not parts count. How many parts you use should be determined by your funds, and not be some arbitrary limitation.

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Where the fairings were standardized and makes it so rockets fly the same payload to payload and look the same. Why won't you p-fairing fans allow us to build nice clean rockets like this? Just like in real life?

In some cases this would mean either use fairings or not whatsoever

Launch this thing using the standard ones:

I real life I would have to assemble it on site or in orbit. If SQUAD allows me to attach wheels to assemblies in space I would rejoice and stick to standard sized fairings once and for all.

Edited January 26, 2015 by cicatrix

[CaptRobau]

In real life, the payload has to work with the rocket, not the other way around. So very few new fairings are made, that would be too expensive...

I real life your probe is custom made, while the fairing is often the same. If you have a science instrument that would stick out of the fairing, you make it tall instead of wide. In KSP the probe is always made out of premade parts, so you don't have that flexibility.

[NovaSilisko]

Also, on the subject of custom fairings for real-world payloads, a whole new regime of aerodynamic testing needs to be carried out to make sure the rocket will still fly stably.