Hidden Fold out wings for atmospheric flight - is Fdev holding out on us?
- Thread starter Boff'in
- Start date
^this.
In real world we fly using aerodynamics because the engines would need to burn a huge amount of fuel to generate lift for a meaningful period (more than few minutes).
In a fantasy world like ED universe where our spaceships can hover above a 9G planet for hours burning only few kgs of hydrogen we don't need aerodynamic to fly.
Shields are enough to avoid damage during atmospheric entry and thrusters are enough to fly in the atmosphere without noticing any difference between an airless planet.
So from the gameplay point of view there's no need to modify the current ships design. It just requires new artistical fx and some new vibration and bumping fx when flying thourgh clouds.
The biggest work imho is to provide accurate lighting (with multiple stars), new assets, new procedural generation for the planets themselves and new meaningful gameplay. And this list is already huge from a development point of view....
"When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly."
-- Sister Bertrille, The Flying Nun c. 1967.
A fully laden FGS only has density of ~38kg/m^3 and a T7 is around half that. They would probably glide (or tumble, especially if thrown with a clean spiral) just fine, on a world with ~1g and ~1atm.
-- Sister Bertrille, The Flying Nun c. 1967.
A fully laden FGS only has density of ~38kg/m^3 and a T7 is around half that. They would probably glide (or tumble, especially if thrown with a clean spiral) just fine, on a world with ~1g and ~1atm.
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Deleted member 110222
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I still think Frontier would be best just to embrace a little fantasy and tell the science-bois to deal with the fact they aren't really flying a spaceship IRL.
Still yet to tell someone about the hyper-realistic 90 minute trip to Hutton and get a reaction other than "That's dumb and boring".
It would be great for the game to embrace some utterly bonkers fantasy concepts.
Still yet to tell someone about the hyper-realistic 90 minute trip to Hutton and get a reaction other than "That's dumb and boring".
It would be great for the game to embrace some utterly bonkers fantasy concepts.
We 'glide' well enough onto airless planets already. In fact, the approach is even called 'glide' and it kicks in at an altitude where atmosphere would be significant on an 'atmo planet.' It's time we had this feature for real.
Actually that wouldn't necessarily need to be true.
If FDev wanted to, they could easily decide that our engines are optimised for use in a vacuum and they only operate at up to, say, 10% efficiency in an atmosphere, thus creating a place for aerodynamics in the game.
Biggest issue, though, is FDev's hand-holding.
As a KSP player, I was used to the feeling of crushing defeat that came with landing on a planet and then finding my ship didn't have the thrust required to escape the planet again.
Coming to ED, it was kind of weird to think that I could bung teensy little thrusters on, say, a Beluga, land on a 9g planet (without cratering) and then successfully regain orbit again.
Point is, it's doubtful FDev are ever going to implement anything that properly paints a player into a corner, leaving the to plummet to their doom or be unable to leave a planet after landing.
At best, all we're probably ever going to get is that some ships might be a bit better than others in atmo' flight as a result of aerodynamics.
And, honestly, I'd be fine with that.
Nearly the whole bottom of the beluga is covered with those itty bitty thruster
You don't need wings to land on a planet with atmosphere a big enough donk (australian for engine) and enough fuel you can overcome gravity enough to stop pancaking into the surface. atmospheric resistance will help slow you down at the cost of heat. FDEV could implement landing and taking off from atmos-planets now! you would have to work out whether the cost in fuel load, and if you had enough to then get back into orbit was worth the trip down....hmm extra 15000cr for my load on the planet with an atmosphere vs running out of fuel and burning up or not achieving orbit. then paying through the nose for reactor fuel, to get back into space. Misshandle the reentry and overshoot the landing pads by 30km. burn half you fuel to get there. Landing Pad Manager-"oh sorry mate reactor fuel is very spensive down here...they make it in space doncha know, i can sell you some million CR a tonne"
Bring it in I like the idea of me burning up on reentry because I vagued out for a second.
I dont like the idea of spending 128 million credits on my belugas fuelYou don't need wings to land on a planet with atmosphere a big enough donk (australian for engine) and enough fuel you can overcome gravity enough to stop pancaking into the surface. atmospheric resistance will help slow you down at the cost of heat. FDEV could implement landing and taking off from atmos-planets now! you would have to work out whether the cost in fuel load, and if you had enough to then get back into orbit was worth the trip down....hmm extra 15000cr for my load on the planet with an atmosphere vs running out of fuel and burning up or not achieving orbit. then paying through the nose for reactor fuel, to get back into space. Misshandle the reentry and overshoot the landing pads by 30km. burn half you fuel to get there. Landing Pad Manager-"oh sorry mate reactor fuel is very spensive down here...they make it in space doncha know, i can sell you some million CR a tonne"
Bring it in I like the idea of me burning up on reentry because I vagued out for a second.
Otherwise, neat idea
Ummm, I haven't done the sums but a T7 can weigh more than 800t.
An An-225 has a maximum weight of around 650t.
I know ship sizes in ED are deceptive but are we saying that a T7 has significantly larger wings than an An-225?
People will learn to do the maths / look at the specs a little metric like the changing jump range based on cargo load would be enough
COVAS " I would not advise landing on this planet Commander" me "..fsshhhure we'll be right"
So is the Op saying FD are secretly competant ? If so they should join MI6 coz they sure as hell keep it well hidden.
Not just the weight the sheer size of the ships is a big factor for wind resitance especially getting off-world pushing an 800t sphere through atmosphere is a lot easier than pushing a 800t shoebox through the same atmosphere
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The biggest differences should/will be heat build-up from drag. FA-OFF, a ship wouldn't be able to maintain a fixed velocity with the engines at idle. Larger ships will be able to handle turbulence/buffeting much better.
None of the ships have control surfaces, so it is still down to good old brute force to maneuver these hulks. Also, a ship like a T7 or T9 should result in a massive amount of wake turbulence for anything following within a few km's.
Would be nice to see things like ground effect added (much easier to land in atmo's due to the cushion of the atmosphere between the surface and underside of the hull)
Am not holding my breath for any of the above ;-)
It's also more than 54k cubic meters in volume.
It has significantly more surface area and much lower density. Actual wing area is less, but not by as much as one might think.
Anyway, drag would be too high and lift too low in it's stock config. It would probably stall and then start tumbling, but given it's large crossection, low mass, and brick like drag coefficient, even this would result in a terminal velocity lower than it's normal speed. So, if it crashed it would be fine.
It could almost certainly manage some form of actual glide with bigger wings.
A T-7 has a thrust to mass ratio well in excess of two and can power it's engines continually for the better part of a day on a normal fuel load.
Drag on an Earth-like world/atmosphere would be a mild inconvenience for it in powered flight and would be no barrier at all to it leaving a planet as it would take only a handful of minutes of flying straight up to clear the overwhelming bulk of the atmosphere.
I think the opposite would be the case.
For a given surface area, smaller ships are heavier and have much more thrust.
But, if an airliner suddenly deployed extra winglets the cool factor would make it twice as efficient.
It would also be great for NPC chat lines:
"Ladies and gentlemen, ensure tables are folded and your chair upright because we are about to engage cool mode."
It would also be great for NPC chat lines:
"Ladies and gentlemen, ensure tables are folded and your chair upright because we are about to engage cool mode."
Also a few of the devs are looking at this thread (hi Dominic!) so from that hard evidence its going to happen.
Nothing to do with thrust or velocity. The higher the mass, the better it can handle turbulence. An Eagle is going to have a harder time than a Cutter.
Hmmm....
It turns out that an An-225 has a main wing with a surface area of around 848m² and a tailplane with a surface area of 270m²
A T7, by comparison, has a main wing surface area of around 246m² and a tailplane with a surface area of 124m²
That's pretty much what I was thinking.
Regardless of the density of ED ships, relying on aerodynamics to keep them in the air is going to be like strapping a cardboard box to a budgie and hoping it'll fly.