So are you practicing "Pointy Rockets"?

[Alshain]

I use FAR so, yeah.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

My rocket was not pointy enough because it only had one escape tower. I solved this issue by placing a bunch of escape towers all along the sides. My rocket was much more pointy after that!

[Majorjim!]

Why yes of course. They have to look like real rockets even if it does nothing for the flight characteristics yet.

Man I CANNOT wait for proper fairings!

[panzer1b]

Almost all the rockets i make are somewhat longer then wide. I do use asdparagus somewhat, but i dont exactly make pankakes or anything id consider completely crazy. More recently, ive been messing with top staged rockets, as many of my newer interplanetary ships use wings for their hull/armor, and the main rocket needs to be a puller for stability.

Aside from this, most of my conventional rockets are either vertically stacked, or use 6 sided asparagus, which looks realistic, and works fairly well.

[TimePeriod]

I never stick to realism as it tends to cost far too much, excessively increase part count and reduce the rockets final payload.

For all I care, realism could go hide in its inefficient cave from once it came.

[Flixxbeatz]

Even my largest of stuff my computer can permit me follow the pointy rockets principle too. Note the standard lifter and sleek (length > width) design. Also, this was launched mostly empty to cut weight instead of

(downside is, the need for before continuing on).

Fully enclosable with fairings. Only that you'll end up with something slightly larger (and wider) than your lifter

[Nathair]

(downside is, the need for ______ before continuing on).

Missing word is "refueling", I assume?

[Flixxbeatz]

Missing word is "refueling", I assume?

Yes.

Thanks for noticing, didn't even noticed it

[Norpo]

Pointy rockets? You mean, like, rockets that are sane and make sense?

lolno

(Yes, that's just a giant rover stuck on top of a rocket)

In my defense, we don't have fairings yet... I'm getting all the non-aerodynamic payloads out before 1.0 specifically because of the upcoming new system. No way in heck i'd get away with this in FAR.

[Roderik]

With the new aero and drag coming on, have you changed your rocket building? Anyone have any ideas on what we should expect? Are we going to have to "slim down" the top sides (upper stages) to make orbit or whatever?

i installed the procedural fairings mod to get fairings into my standard rocket building system

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Yeah... I tried practicing (planes, not rockets) with NEAR, but it was not pretty.

If I managed to take off, I'd flip over within about a minute of making it off the ground.

I think I'll wait until 1.0, as no doubt the mechanics will be a bit different to the current aerodynamics mods.

As for my style of rocket building, they're usually of the vertical variety.

My poor old compute doesn't like vehicles with more than 350 parts, stuttering & overheating.

[Guest]

Asparagus belongs on my plate with garlic and a nice Hollandaise sauce. All my boosters follow real-world principles.

[merendel]

already was. I play with FAR so I already need to keep things reasonable. Then agian the only thing that changed when I went to FAR over stock aero was some of my designs needed nosecones. As long as your not makeing pancake rockets its not that bad. I still do asparagus staging on occasion in FAR and it works fine. Just have to keep it down to 1 layer around the central core and put nosecones on everything.

[Pixel of Life]

As a FAR player, I've always built my rockets tall and narrow. I might have to make some changes to my designs with the new stock aero, but nothing too radical. I'll just switch back to FAR if I don't like it.

[Redd]

Installed FAR to semi-prepare myself for 1.0, or at least for a harsher environment.

Found that, after adding some nosecones and fairings, my rockets need way less dV to reach orbit (which as I understand is intended behavior). Now I'm kicking myself for not adding it to my game earlier. All those LKO refueling missions would've been a lot easier this way.

I was never able to build and fly a decent plane, so that hasn't changed at all. Which also means I'm essentially experiencing zero drawbacks from FAR.

[White Owl]

I bet FAR users will be more surprised with new part stats than with the shape of the rocket, or a smooth gravity turn.

[Redd]

I bet FAR users will be more surprised with new part stats than with the shape of the rocket, or a smooth gravity turn.

I am one of the FAR noobs that's guilty of flying straight up to 10km and then doing an aggressive gravity turn. Obviously ended up with everything exploding. Lesson learned.

I know this isn't the place for it, but seeing as we have a lot of experienced FAR users in here: Am I still supposed to stay near or below 200m/s while below 10k altitude?

[White Owl]

I think technically for perfect efficiency there is a terminal velocity you shouldn't exceed... but it's a whole lot faster than 200m/s and varies with the size and shape of your rocket. The FAR drag isn't quite so much of a boat anchor, so I've seen plenty of people just floor it at launch. I personally try to keep EAS under 250 m/s or so, just to reduce the aerodynamic stress so tailfins don't break, then throttle back to stay under 3 Gs.

But I'm sure there's a way to determine the theoretically perfect launch for a given vehicle... I just don't know what it is.

[Jouni]

I think technically for perfect efficiency there is a terminal velocity you shouldn't exceed... but it's a whole lot faster than 200m/s and varies with the size and shape of your rocket. The FAR drag isn't quite so much of a boat anchor, so I've seen plenty of people just floor it at launch. I personally try to keep EAS under 250 m/s or so, just to reduce the aerodynamic stress so tailfins don't break, then throttle back to stay under 3 Gs.

Exceeding the terminal velocity by a small amount (e.g. 20%) isn't such a bad thing. Because the terminal velocity is usually 600-1100 m/s at launch, you tend to lose much more by flying significantly slower than it.

I let my rockets fly as fast as they can. Because I use staged rockets and usually start with TWR at 1.2-1.4, they basically never fly too fast.

[Pixel of Life]

I know this isn't the place for it, but seeing as we have a lot of experienced FAR users in here: Am I still supposed to stay near or below 200m/s while below 10k altitude?

Yes, as White Owl said, FAR is in a way much more forgiving than stock aero. You're not getting anywhere near as much drag dV losses as with stock. I think you can safely go supersonic at 10k. But there are some things you need to remember:

1) Control surface effectiveness is reduced significantly at transonic speeds, especially in the thick lower atmosphere. You'll want to accelerate through Mach 1 as quickly as possible (note - "quickly", not necessarily "soon").

2) Limit the maximum deflection of any control surfaces you have on your rocket. The default setting of 15 degrees is WAY too much, the SAS can't handle it and will cause extreme wobbling. I usually set mine at around 5 degrees.

[cantab]

While there have been exceptions, most of my rockets were roughly rocket-shaped. My asteroid tug for example was pretty slim and would fit in a sensible fairing.

And nowadays I use FAR, so I have to think about aerodynamics. Though some things have ended up wide by necessity and others looked just plain daft.

[Flixxbeatz]

stock pointy aerodynamic lifter. amidoinitrite?

This is the payload:

[Thiel]

I've always built pointy rockets. It's an appealing aesthetic.

[FlyingPete]

My rockets are mostly rocket-shaped anyway. Even if there are radially-mounted engines, the whole thing usually stages from the bottom up. The exception is SRBs- I often mount these radially to increase the launch TWR. They're jettisoned fairly early on though.

[Dingbat1967]

I use NEAR/FAR so I'm pretty much obligated to build rockets that look and behave like real ones. I use KW Rocketry's fairings and it's a lot of fun to try to fit something inside a 2.5m or 3.75m fairing. Sometimes I'll use infernal robotics to make things foldable so that I can squeeze as much as I can from the room inside the fairing. So I think I'm pretty much already used to playing with aerodynamics constraints.