This has come to be problematic for me more times than I would like, and half the time I don't know how I've managed to get into this situation in the first place!
While diagnosing why my plane was flying odd, I decided to investigate the XML to make sure the inverted setting was properly applied to the Wings... Turned out that of the 8 wing parts I had (4 per side), half of them had the wrong Inverted value set. :\ (not for the control surfaces, mind you)
I feel that the solution of having a very crudely modeled representation of the airfoil being used, would solve this since we'd be able to easily, visually, notice this without having to dig through multiple parts settings in Overload (or worse, in the file itself). That way it keeps with the look of the planes as it stands, since it'd still be blocky, but also would enhance the look of builds that don't "skin" the wings.
Furthermore, it'd be toggled by a simple menu option, something like Show Airfoil [ ], defaulting to Off. That way, anyone who is using multiple wing parts to create a giant wing, would be able to preserve that aesthetic.
And honestly, I'd be content if this ONLY was in the Designer menu, should there be a chance that adding a few additional angles to wings results in some large performance hit (I don't put it passed Unity engine lol).
This would also assist when trying to figure out how exactly it is that SP "sees" the wing, when using values that are outside the typical range for Wings.
(specifically: when setting tipPosition distance value to a negative, since I don't know the math on how to "flip" a part in place [flip, not mirror!] through changing the rotation's values; particularly on Wing parts.)
In Summary...
-Requesting an option for Wings, in the Part Settings menu, to toggle modeling the airfoil
-Said option would be straight forward in the interface: a checkbox to avoid confusing; Naming kept simple and intuitive. Potential labels could be:
----Show Airfoil or Show Aerofoil
----Modeled Airfoil or Modeled Aerofoil
----Airfoil Displayed? or Aerofoil Displayed?
-Could be kept only to the Designer, where processing load is inherently much lower
-The new model would not need to be "high-poly" by any means, adding only a couple extra angles/lines for each type. For example:
(Wing Tips, as viewed straight-on from the side and the shape would be same on Root side and present throughout the entire wing's body; scaled appropriately when "Editing" wing dimensions.)
Yes.
Modeled airfoils also give the benefit of having a more true damage model for any given design. Damaged or missing fake fuselage wings don't affect flight performance the same way missing real wing parts do.
Also there's the argument that having high-detail (compared to my example) wings would, in the end, be a net gain for performance in a lot of case since it'd result in far fewer parts. As we currently end up using additional fuselage parts in order to skin the wings so that they DO look nice.
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So in that sense, this is along the same lines of making modeled cockpit parts for us, to cut back on the extra hundred or more parts some cockpits ate up.
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At the moment, the "simple" way to make a wing look somewhat nice is to have a small (roughly 0.2x0.2) diameter fuselage that is the same length as the wing, to act as the leading-edge. Then a flat Nose Cone (0.2 height) to act as the end of the wing. But that only gets you so far as a contoured leading edge.
If you want a full wing, now you need a large fuselage to encompass the wing, plus at least another 1 or 2 that act as control surfaces, along with each one's accompanying Hinge Rotator. On the higher-end, another small wing per control surface!
If they can implement fuselage slicing then I don't see a reason why not to add modeled airfoils
Totally agree. It would be cool if we could invert aerofoils manually in part properties and not have to open overload.