Make engine fairings procedural/dyamic as well

[CaptRobau]

I'm a big fan of the procedural payload fairings that Squad is going to add in 1.0. I love it when my rockets look streamlined and with the new aerodynamic system that will be introduced in 1.0 too, making things aerodynamic will be very useful or even necessary. One area where payload fairings won't do much good streamlining things is with engines. Those have had fairings for a while now and coupled with several sizes of adapters can produce pretty streamlined rocket stages. The big issue with the current implementation of engine fairings is that they're not versatile at all: they come in only one size. A 1.25m engine will only have a 1.25m to 1.25m engine fairing. With the non-dynamic fairings that we have now means that you run into problems when you for example put a small engine beneath a larger tank (ex. 1.25m engine on 2.5m tank). This can often be a useful building style, but the 1.25m fairing makes it look bad and would be not be very aerodynamic. Another problem arises when you put a smaller engine above a larger tank (ex. 2.5m engine above a 3.75m stage). Such tapered engines fairings have been used for a lot of real-life launchers such as the Saturn V (S-II to S-IVB stage), but are impossible in KSP.

Making the engine fairings more dynamic would allow for much more versatile designs and make streamlining your launch vehicles much easier. There are two ways to this in my eyes:

1. Non-procedural: pre-made fairings like the current system but more fairings for more situations. A 1.25m engine for example could have 3 fairings that appear based on the situation. The first is the standard 1.25m to 1.25m one. The second is one that is applied when the engine is attached to 2.5m parts both on top and the bottom (the top often being a fuel tank and the bottom the decoupler). The third would be a tapered fairing that appears when you have a 1.25m part on top and a 2.5m part on the bottom.

2. Procedural: the fairing automatically extends from the top attachment size to the bottom attachment size. It doesn't matter if it's 1.25m to 3.75m or 3.75m to 1.25m. The advantages of this is that it will make it easier for mods to make engines work with the new system: larger sizes such as 5m would be supported out of the box and modders would need to spend less time on making fairings for their engines.

What do you think?

[EventHorizon429]

I agree. I've found myself in several situations where I have a LV-N sandwiched inbetween 2.5m parts and how irritating it looked. If the upcoming fairings in 1.0 are adequate enough, I'm sure you could use them to conceal an engine that is smaller than the fuel tank(s)/objects that it's attached to.

[FishInferno]

I like this idea. I like option #1 as long as we ca manually set the mode ourselves.

[Pthigrivi]

I think more useful would be general purpose interstage fairings. I often like to pack multiple LVNs and lander type stuff in between stages and this would take care of all of that.