Stock fairings: Procedural or not?

[FishInferno]

That actually makes a *lot* of sense. That way, there can be an advantage in squeezing out that 0.1 meters of diameter if it lets you use a smaller fairing, but you aren't *forced* to do so if you're willing to take the price hit of the next bigger one. Some form of procedural is likely necessary; this seems like a good balance.

Yes, fairings that can be fir to preset sizes rather than fairings that fir to any size are a god compromise

[Louella]

as regards the size of landers.

the lander I posted before, with the wide landing legs on girders. Yes, I know it is a big lander, because it was to rescue a lot of Kerbals from the Mun. Because their lander fell over.

Their lander, was for a base contract. To land a laboratory + cupola + some science things on the Mun.

Cupola + laboratory + science things + descent engine + fuel tank = a very heavy, very tall lander, that requires flat ground. even a 5 degree slope was too much, when putting the landing legs attached to the sides.

If that's considered an overly large lander that players are being unrealistic in expecting should go into space easily, then maybe the game shouldn't give contracts that require such things as landers, yes ?

[Brotoro]

I've decided to build a round of payloads with a diameter limit ...just to see what fun you fixed-width-fairing-lovers are having in a fixed-size world...and because I CAN, even if I don't have fixed width fairings to force me to.

So... How wide can I make my fairings before you think they are impossible? 110% of the attached stage diameter? 120%? 150%? 200%? 300%? Where do you feel that the limit should be? I'm game to play!

[Superfluous J]

If that's considered an overly large lander that players are being unrealistic in expecting should go into space easily, then maybe the game shouldn't give contracts that require such things as landers, yes ?

Exactly.

And if you're supposed to put such a lander on top of a Saturn-5 size rocket so the fairings "look right" then maybe the game should nerf engines so you literally can't get it to orbit with anything less than 5 mainsails under fuel tanks bigger than the SLS ones.

(PS: Squad please don't actually do that)

[r4pt0r]

*EDIT*

for the people worried about 5m+ landers not fitting in to fairings etc. well yes, your designs are likely to change BUT hinges people, HINGES will save the day! We need more people asking about hinges and rotation joints in stock.

I PM'ed Rows a few days ago to ask permission to start a Hinge discussion(since they are on the WNTS list). He hasn't gotten back to me. With the revelation that fairings are coming stock we NEED a way to make our payloads more compact.

Can a mod tell me if we can start 1 discussion thread on hinges, as they pertain to fitting things into fairings? Anyone?

[vexx32]

Permission granted. Try to keep things on topic and civil, and we'll let you go ahead with it.

[r4pt0r]

Thanks vexx, i'll get it going.

[Brotoro]

I PM'ed Rows a few days ago to ask permission to start a Hinge discussion(since they are on the WNTS list). He hasn't gotten back to me. With the revelation that fairings are coming stock we NEED a way to make our payloads more compact.

Can a mod tell me if we can start 1 discussion thread on hinges, as they pertain to fitting things into fairings? Anyone?

r4pt0r,

In addition to hinges and rotating hubs, you need some sort of in-orbit attachment of struts. The last time I used hinges to make a folding rover (Damned Robotics mod...way back in KSP 0.19 I think), the problem was that the hinges were too wobbly. Being able to have kerbals attach struts in space would help a lot with this.

Also, smaller-sized payloads forced by fairing limits also leads to building bigger ships in orbit out of smaller pieces... and, again, being able to strut your stuff is important if you want to be able to boost your assembled toys off into deep space.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Brotoro

[Fel]

Why don't we just add in procedural rockets, or procedural space planes; both would drastically reduce the part count and decrease lag so you can focus on getting your procedural lander and procedural rover to the destination you want!

Part of the fun in KSP is working with constraints and many constraints start disappearing once you add in procedural. That's not to say that KSP doesn't have some pretty big constraints, but procedural tends to remove constraints without adding in any new constraints. Effectively, it very quickly makes things less about coming up with a crazy way to do something and more about "skipping over that part." And, given the way development tends to go, it makes it less likely for more thought to be placed in to making constraining fairings that challenge the player while still permitting creativity.

Of course, this is why people turn to mods, which is the nice part of KSP.

And yes, the thing about KSP is... there are aspects that some people really enjoy that others don't...

[SaturnV]

Why don't we just add in procedural rockets, or procedural space planes; both would drastically reduce the part count and decrease lag so you can focus on getting your procedural lander and procedural rover to the destination you want!

Part of the fun in KSP is working with constraints and many constraints start disappearing once you add in procedural. That's not to say that KSP doesn't have some pretty big constraints, but procedural tends to remove constraints without adding in any new constraints. Effectively, it very quickly makes things less about coming up with a crazy way to do something and more about "skipping over that part." And, given the way development tends to go, it makes it less likely for more thought to be placed in to making constraining fairings that challenge the player while still permitting creativity.

Of course, this is why people turn to mods, which is the nice part of KSP.

And yes, the thing about KSP is... there are aspects that some people really enjoy that others don't...

Can't remember when and where I saw it, but I think Squad mentioned something like “it will harm the fun“ regarding procedural parts/engines

Edited January 29, 2015 by SaturnV

[Superfluous J]

Why don't we just add in procedural rockets, or procedural space planes; both would drastically reduce the part count and decrease lag so you can focus on getting your procedural lander and procedural rover to the destination you want!

I can play that too.

Why don't we just snap every single pipe and fitting inside and outside the rockets, from a vast array of thousands of parts? That way you can focus on building the exact rocket you want and who cares if it's 10,000 parts and won't load?

There is a middle ground between the extremes, and for fairings going procedural may be outside what you personally want but it is nowhere NEAR* the extreme of just plopping down a single, pre-made spaceplane and calling it done.

*no relation to the mod.

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Can't remember when and where I saw it, but I think Squad mentioned something like “it will harm the fun“ regarding procedural parts/engines

Having just toyed around with SETI (I never have enough time to play this game, darn it!) I can say (for me) that that sentiment is crazy wrong.

[Brotoro]

The thing I would dislike about procedural tanks and engines is: when looking at somebody else's rockets, I would have a hard time telling what I'm looking at. Is that a regular tank?...or some scaled up tank?...so should I be impressed that this got to Tylo and back? Is that a normal LV-N...or some scaled up thing? (It's the same problem I have when looking at craft with unfamiliar mod parts...I don't have an instinctive feel for what the capabilities are of the parts I'm looking at.) Of course, on the other hand, it would be nice to have a lot fewer parts causing lag.

I have a harder time arguing against procedural wings, since I'd have the standard tanks and fuselage parts for reference when looking at them. And the way people have to build giant wings now out of a patchwork of small wings looks goofy.

[Superfluous J]

The thing I would dislike about procedural tanks and engines is: when looking at somebody else's rockets, I would have a hard time telling what I'm looking at. Is that a regular tank?...or some scaled up tank?...so should I be impressed that this got to Tylo and back? Is that a normal LV-N...or some scaled up thing? (It's the same problem I have when looking at craft with unfamiliar mod parts...I don't have an instinctive feel for what the capabilities are of the parts I'm looking at.) Of course, on the other hand, it would be nice to have a lot fewer parts causing lag.

I agree with things like engines, but anything where we have "normal" size, 1/2 size, 1/4 size, and 1/8 size (ie, fuel tanks) there is NO reason I can see that you shouldn't just be able to make the tank any size you want - within limits set by your progression through the tech tree. Sure you can't tell by looking exactly how much fuel there is.

I had a similar problem with tweakables when they were introduced.

[Brotoro]

Do they just change the length and not the diameter of the tanks? That wouldn't be so confusing, especially if they had some repeated markings so I could tell how many standard tankfuls there is in the extended tank.

[Superfluous J]

Do they just change the length and not the diameter of the tanks? That wouldn't be so confusing, especially if they had some repeated markings so I could tell how many standard tankfuls there is in the extended tank.

I've not used them a lot (I just started playing SETI) but from what I can tell, you can set the height and width, but the widths are standard sizes. Or at least, you can easily snap to those standard sizes. One thing: The texture of each tank is not unique like they are with the pieces-parts, so if you had an Orange-tank sized tank floating in space and an 800-sized tank floating in space, you could confuse them for each other without something to tell their relative sizes.

[cpast]

I've decided to build a round of payloads with a diameter limit ...just to see what fun you fixed-width-fairing-lovers are having in a fixed-size world...and because I CAN, even if I don't have fixed width fairings to force me to.

So... How wide can I make my fairings before you think they are impossible? 110% of the attached stage diameter? 120%? 150%? 200%? 300%? Where do you feel that the limit should be? I'm game to play!

The issue I have isn't pancake rockets. That's not the fairing system's job to discourage; it's the aero system's (and no, a pancake fairing shouldn't make your rocket particularly aerodynamic). While ultra-wide fairings should probably cost somewhat more (say, multiply your base price by the ratio between fairing max width and rocket max width to the 1.1 power, so pancake rockets cost a lot but you can do them), the issue isn't actually the width. The thing with infinite-resolution procedural fairings is that there's no "box" to fit things into -- shaving 0.1m off the diameter never has a big effect, so there's much less reason to care about a bit of optimizing. Now, this is how KSP works now; adding a box for fixed fairings changes the game more than pure proc fairings. However, I think it's an *interesting* change; it means fitting payloads in rockets is more akin to fitting cargo bays.

Now, as people have pointed out, there's not all that much fun in totally banning pancake rockets - they should be hard (because they make very little sense physically), but possible, and the fairing system shouldn't just be for sane designs. The interesting gameplay aspect from my point of view has nothing whatsoever to do with generally limiting diameter, and everything to do with *having* a box that you want to fit it within. And that can be done fairly well if proc fairings *aren't* infinitely scalable, but rather come in fixed size increments. Want to build a pancake rocket? Fine, but there aren't fairings of 9.5 m wide -- you'll have to take the 10m fairing, unless you can get your payload inside 9m, which will bring the cost/mass down somewhat noticeably. That adds the aspect of wanting things to fit, without a penalty of "you can't use fairings on this craft" if you can't make them fit -- just a bit of a price/mass increase, but nothing you can't put more rocket or funds into.

[Capt Snuggler]

I PM'ed Rows a few days ago to ask permission to start a Hinge discussion(since they are on the WNTS list). He hasn't gotten back to me. With the revelation that fairings are coming stock we NEED a way to make our payloads more compact.

Can a mod tell me if we can start 1 discussion thread on hinges, as they pertain to fitting things into fairings? Anyone?

I tried starting a discussion thread as well but it was promptly shut down by squads G-men.

[Superfluous J]

I tried starting a discussion thread as well but it was promptly shut down by squads G-men.

Then by all means you'll want to participate in this thread, which was allowed to be started due to the unique situation we're in now: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108890-With-Fairings-becoming-stock-we-NEED-stock-hinges

[Bill Phil]

What I don't get, is that procedural fairings are apparently a "must", while procedural cargo bays are not?

[Louella]

Exactly.

And if you're supposed to put such a lander on top of a Saturn-5 size rocket so the fairings "look right" then maybe the game should nerf engines so you literally can't get it to orbit with anything less than 5 mainsails under fuel tanks bigger than the SLS ones.

(PS: Squad please don't actually do that)

even with the lander legs flush against the stack, a fairing would be as wide as the biggest single rocket stage, those black/white ones that are bigger than the rockomax orange ones.

and with legs wide enough that a moderate skilled player could land the thing, a fairing is wider than the biggest rocket with rockomax sized boosters strapped to it.

Game tells you to deploy huge landers, having significant penalties for doing that is a bit :|

[klgraham1013]

What I don't get, is that procedural fairings are apparently a "must", while procedural cargo bays are not?

...or procedural tanks. ...or procedural wings. I'm actually surprised about the fairings, as Squad has stuck firmly to the lego idea of building.

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I tried starting a discussion thread as well but it was promptly shut down by squads G-men.

Seriously? Hinges are a banned topic?

[FishInferno]

What I don't get, is that procedural fairings are apparently a "must", while procedural cargo bays are not?

The way of building a spaceplane is different than that of a rocket. You wouldn't want a large bulge in the center of a SSTO, would you?

[Jouni]

The way of building a spaceplane is different than that of a rocket. You wouldn't want a large bulge in the center of a SSTO, would you?

What about something with a similar shape as the Mk2 parts, but 10 m wide instead of 2.5 m?

[klgraham1013]

The way of building a spaceplane is different than that of a rocket. You wouldn't want a large bulge in the center of a SSTO, would you?

He's probably just talking about length being procedural, not form-fitting around the cargo.

[FishInferno]

He's probably just talking about length being procedural, not form-fitting around the cargo.

That is easy enough to do by putting multiple cargo bays in a row.

What about something with a similar shape as the Mk2 parts, but 10 m wide instead of 2.5 m?

That would be one heck of a spaceplane.