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Poll - what rocket engine do you use the least / forgot about?


George van Doorn

Poll - what rocket engine do you use the least / never?  

160 members have voted

  1. 1. What rocket engine do you use the least / never?

    • KR-2L+ "Rhino"
      7
    • MK-55 "Thud"
      14
    • KR 1X2 "TwinBoar"
      14
    • S3 KS-25X4 "Mammoth"
      0
    • S3 KS-25 "Vector"
      7
    • T1 Toroidal Aerospike "Dart"
      22
    • LV-N "Nerv"
      4
    • LV-1R "Spider"
      14
    • 24-77 "Twitch"
      3
    • O-10 "Puff"
      25
    • LV-1 "Ant"
      28
    • 48-7s "Spark"
      0
    • IX-6315 "Dawn"
      20
    • RE-M3 "Mainsail"
      2


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Sup guys? Back in the day, when I was reading the engine's description and asking myself wadup with all those numbers next to the engine, I arrived at the "Thud", sounding similar to stud in my mind, so it must be cool right? After reading that description, funny as it is, I asked myself, "OK, how bad can it actually be"? Yeah... it's bad. So I'm basically never using it because there are other (better) ways to skin the cat. Funny enough it has decent kN and Isp on Eve ASL :).

Feel free to share your "Yeah...that sucks." experience regarding engines and vote.

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Probably the Dawn or O-10 Puff. I don't use the Dawn because I haven't done serious interplanetary missions before my current career, and I have yet to research ion stuff in my current career. Also I have RLA stockalike installed, which renders the Puff pretty much useless since it adds better monoprop engines with higher ISP. Only reason I might use it is that it has higher thrust than RLA engines.

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I went with the Dawn (too expensive and complicated and I don't need that much DV), but there are several other engines I never use.

-The Rhino is plenty efficient in vacuum, but way too big and powerful for my needs.
-The Vector is too expensive. I can find cheaper ways to do the same thing with other engines.
- The Thud. It's just not competitive with other engines in it's class.

I rarely use the Puff. If it wasn't for shuttle designs and derivatives, I'd probably never use it.

Best,
-Slashy


 

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Probably the Twin Boar for me. Career is my mode of choice, and it seems to be not that useful compared to the next tiers of engines, so I usually skip right past it without making use of it.

The Puff, the Spider, the Dawn, and the Thud also don't get much love from me. Why is the Spider's ISP so much worse compared to the Ant anyway?

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10 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Vector - too heavy and powerful for space shuttles , causes CoM issues.    Also crummy vacuum ISP, which a SSME needs above all else.

 

It's absolutely great used in clusters for super heavy lifters. One in the middle and a ring of 8 around and BOOM you have the equivalent of two Mammoths and then some.

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Surprisingly, the Twin-Boar. It has great stats, but the fact it's stuck with a fuel tank makes it just too big and unwieldy; that and just has too much thrust for its own good. Besides, I can just stick a few orange tanks and a slap on a Vector or two and get something with even better efficiency--the Vectors sip fuel (64.660/s) compared to the Twin Boars (135.962/s)--and better TWR control.

IMO, it only has a few useful niches, and that's it. It really doesn't fit well into an overall design.

(Disclaimer: before anyone complains about career, I play sandbox exclusively, so I don't need to about them stinkin' spesos.)

Edited by Mrsupersonic8
Added disclaimer
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2 hours ago, Allocthonous said:

Probably the Twin Boar for me. Career is my mode of choice, and it seems to be not that useful compared to the next tiers of engines, so I usually skip right past it without making use of it.

Allocthonous,

 You're missing out. The Twin-Boar is a fantastically cheap and versatile booster, especially when used in parallel with Kickbacks.

Cheep140_zps0szutwja.jpg

140t to orbit for under $100,000.

Best,
-Slashy

 

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1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

Allocthonous,

 You're missing out. The Twin-Boar is a fantastically cheap and versatile booster, especially when used in parallel with Kickbacks.

I'll have to give it a shot. I'm still getting the hang of efficient launch systems, even after almost 500 hours of play.

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Hm.., I'm thinking about a challenge using only Puff engines, see what can be accomplished. To be continued. But first I'd rather wait until the end of the weekend or so, maybe more people will vote and turn the result around.

Edited by George van Doorn
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The 0-10 Puff.  Poor efficiency and radial attach only.  I'd rather use an Ant/Spider or a Spark in nearly every instance that I can think of.  The one exception might be an RCS tug for low orbital operations, but I have yet to require one.

At least they made it bigger!

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9 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Cheep140_zps0szutwja.jpg

Any particular rationale behind this specific tank setup on the side boosters? In particular two flat tanks instead of one twice the size?

 

On topic: I don't think I ever used Puff seriously.

Other than that:

 

  • KR-2L+ "Rhino"
     - The go-to engine for hauling big asteroids.
  • MK-55 "Thud"
     - hardly useful, but if you need some extra thrust in early career or keep your bottom clear and profile narrow...
  • KR 1X2 "TwinBoar"
    - great for all med-to-large boosters.
  • S3 KS-25X4 "Mammoth"
    - huge boosters
  • S3 KS-25 "Vector"
    - stick two on Mammoth bottom if still lacking thrust. Also 1.25m profile rockets with these are pure joy to fly.
  • T1 Toroidal Aerospike "Dart"
    - awesome low-profile. If you need good thrust, decent ISp and small engine, THIS.
  • LV-N "Nerv"
    - no comment.
  • LV-1R "Spider"
    - great for last stage of probes and satellites. You get insane delta-V from tiny tankage. Also hinges.
  • 24-77 "Twitch"
    - hardly useful, 'cause what is too heavy for Spider is heavy enough for Thud. Curious aesthetics, though, last time I used them to simulate a plot of space carrots.
  • O-10 "Puff"
    - why? If I want to fly on monoprop, I use unidirectional RCS thruster.
  • LV-1 "Ant"
    - good for tiny craft, like dinghies. Huge delta-V from small tanks without bothering with electricity like for Dawn.
  • 48-7s "Spark"
    - 0.625m upper/suborbital stage. Other than that, little use.
  • IX-6315 "Dawn"
    - if you want obscene amounts of delta-V and don't worry about electricity.
  • RE-M3 "Mainsail"
    - when Twin Boar is too much but Kickback is not enough.
Edited by Sharpy
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7 hours ago, Mr. Me said:

I agree with @regex, the O-10 is a usefull idea, just no one can find a use for it.

Actually, I use O-10s quite often.

They're dreadfully inefficient from a mass POV, but they're the best engines available from a volume POV. When you're trying to get as much ΔV as possible onto a probe while still keeping it compact enough to fit into a small cargo bay, the O-10 is king.

XL3UXgj.jpg

Edited by Wanderfound
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3 hours ago, Sharpy said:

On topic: I don't think I ever used Puff seriously.

I don't know if this counts as seriously... RCS thruster blocks would work as well, but I used them on some shuttle designs.

ak00vON.png

I also sometimes slap them on other craft to make use of the monoprop storage in various command pods and such, but standard RCS thruster blocks are nearly as good for that, and of course give you the benefit of being able to use RCS.

Later shuttle designs used LFO tanks in the bay rather than monoprop (although the main engine was a bit hard to use due to its angle). In one design, I put a pair at the CoM in the cargo bay. I would use up just about all the LFO getting to orbit, and then point the open cargobay prograde, decouple the payload, and fire the pair of puffs -> payload extracts from cargobay, and the puff supply the dV to deorbit:

K76VChe.png

56 m/s was all I had left, and it was just the monoprop. As you can see, I used a significant portion of the monoprop just getting PE over 70 km. RCS blocks would have even worse TWR.

Puffs are very niche, special purpose engines.

 

Quote
  • KR-2L+ "Rhino"
     - The go-to engine for hauling big asteroids.

Or hauling lots of fuel from a vacuum world, or as a shuttle main engine before the vector was introduced, or even after, or an ejector stage for a large mission to say... jool

Spoiler

jNYV7Xn.png

oVu7wmp.png

Hfx71vf.png

Z0fimh5.png

tguSWmG.png

JBM98Qi.png

*can't see the KR-2l, but its there

hTOcaAx.png

Oh yea, at the tops of those mining rigs/tankers, that part with the monoprop, 2.5m docking port, and claw, that section I often give O-10 puffs

 

Quote

  • MK-55 "Thud"
     - hardly useful, but if you need some extra thrust in early career or keep your bottom clear and profile narrow...

Well, I also find them useful for VTOL craft with mk3 rover bays.

In many cases, to deploy the rover up and down the ramp successfully, I need to retract the gear and have the craft rest flat on the ground, with a very shallow ramp angle, so I can't have engines sticking out the bottom of my craft (I also don't like to part clip)
B0pfK7w.png

BrCryV3.png

an example of the laying flat... although I don't need VTOL on laythe

Spoiler

VvAcAD5.png

 

 

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3 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Any particular rationale behind this specific tank setup on the side boosters? In particular two flat tanks instead of one twice the size?

Sharpy,

 Not particularly. One of those tanks was the base part for the side stack. By the time I got it all set, I was too lazy to tear it apart just to replace them.

Best,
-Slashy

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