Nuke engines

[How to: KSP]

I started playing ksp in 1.0.4 I heard that nuclear engines had gimballing before 1.0. Should the developers bring back the nuclear engine's gimballing.

[Cucco-Master]

Honestly, thrust vectoring on LV-Ns is pretty unnecessary. Engine gimbal is mainly needed in situations where your ships needs a lot of turning torque (to keep it stable in an atmosphere at high speeds, especially while performing a gravity turn, etc.). LV-Ns are intended as orbital transfer engines with low acceleration. Due to their pathecially low efficiency in an atmosphere, you will only use them, when there is no drag to counteract with your ship's torque, so basic reaction wheels will suffice (those will also have sufficient electric power while some LV-Ns are running). LV-Ns also don't have a very high thrust, so they won't put a lot of stress on your ship that could make it unstable, so again, you won't need thrust vectoring to hold your direction while only LV-Ns are running.

[Spaceception]

^^^

What he said.

Although, it would be nice, and lower the part count.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Spaceception

[Rath]

Also, it looks like it has an actuator

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

my nuke gimballed...

[How to: KSP]

7 hours ago, Spaceception said:

^^^

What he/she said.

Although, it would be nice, and lower the part count.

FYI. I'm a male

[Spaceception]

16 minutes ago, How to: KSP said:

FYI. I'm a male

I was taking about the poster above me.

 

But 'k

[How to: KSP]

18 hours ago, LetsGoToMars! said:

my nuke gimballed...

Nice pun

[Red Iron Crown]

20 hours ago, Cucco-Master said:

Due to their pathecially low efficiency in an atmosphere, you will only use them, when there is no drag to counteract with your ship's torque...

IIRC by about 1700m altitude they are more efficient than any chemical engine, plus it's not uncommon at all to use LV-Ns as the rocket portion of an SSTO (where they'd also be doing their work in thin atmo).

Bring back the gimbal.

[Streetwind]

While you wait and see whether or not Squad will grant your wish, here's a quick fix you can use today:

- Download and install the mod Module Manager
- Create a new plain text file in your .../Kerbal Space Program/Gamedata folder
- Change the file extension to .cfg
- Paste the following into the file and save:

@PART[nuclearEngine]:FINAL
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleGimbal
		gimbalTransformName = thrustTransform
		gimbalRange = 3
	}
}

Voila: your LV-N should now have thrust vectoring. Whether or not it is animated correctly, I can't say; but the steering force effect should definitely be there.

You can put your desired value for gimbalRange, by the way. It's in degrees, so the above example results in a 3° gimbal. If you wanted 4° instead, you'd put a 4 instead of the 3.

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by Streetwind

[How to: KSP]

13 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

While you wait and see whether or not Squad will grant your wish, here's a quick fix you can use today:

- Download and install the mod Module Manager
- Create a new plain text file in your .../Kerbal Space Program/Gamedata folder
- Change the file extension to .cfg
- Paste the following into the file and save:

@PART[nuclearEngine]:FINAL
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleGimbal
		gimbalTransformName = thrustTransform
		gimbalRange = 3
	}
}

Voila: your LV-N should now have thrust vectoring. Whether or not it is animated correctly, I can't say; but the steering force effect should definitely be there.

You can put your desired value for gimbalRange, by the way. It's in degrees, so the above example results in a 3° gimbal. If you wanted 4° instead, you'd put a 4 instead of the 3.

 

Thank you. Now ma dreams came true

[Cucco-Master]

8 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

IIRC by about 1700m altitude they are more efficient than any chemical engine, plus it's not uncommon at all to use LV-Ns as the rocket portion of an SSTO (where they'd also be doing their work in thin atmo).

Bring back the gimbal.

1700m already? Good to know, whenever I use my leftover LF to slow down with LV-Ns during atmospheric reentry, I always worry that they might become too inefficient until I need them. Apparently I don't really need to worry about that anymore ^^

Yes, I have used LV-Ns on a spaceplane myself, but at ~25km+ I didn't really feel like I would have needed gimbal capability up there (my spaceplanes keep failing for various other reasons, though ). Well, different players play differently

 

20 hours ago, Spaceception said:

21 hours ago, How to: KSP said:

FYI. I'm a male

I was taking about the poster above me.

Well, it is "master", not "mistress"

[MircoMars]

27 minutes ago, Cucco-Master said:

Yes, I have used LV-Ns on a spaceplane myself, but at ~25km+ I didn't really feel like I would have needed gimbal capability up there (my spaceplanes keep failing for various other reasons, though ). Well, different players play differently

 

right click on the engine to open that little window, it shows the current thrust and isp. then you can decide if using that engine is worthwhile.

Edited June 15, 2016 by MircoMars

[Ultimate Steve]

I actually would really like gimbal on the nuke. For large interplanetary ships during long burns, especially if they are asymmetrical (I like to build mine with a cupola sticking out of one side).