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  • 1.7 Maneuvering Engine Balance Changes


    Maxsimal

    Maneuver Engine Re-Balance

    Among the other features in 1.7 are a few art revamps for various maneuver engines.  And amongst the feedback for those engines, some of the community pointed out that a couple of these engines aren’t as useful as others, due to their stats.

    The team decided to take a look and yes, we did see some tuning issues – so we decided to update select numbers of the engines we’re revamping.

    As with the last blog on the tuning of the MH engines, the goal here is balance and making sure each of our engines has a niche and a use, while making the smallest number of changes possible.

    So first, here are the raw numbers of the engines we’re changing, as well as some reference numbers of similar engines that aren’t changing.

     

    Engine Comparison

    Thrust (Vac)

    ISP Vac

    ISP ASL

    Mass

    Vac TWR

    ASL TWR

    Cost

    Cost/kN Thrust

    Tech Level

    Gimbal Range

    EC/s

    Crash Tolerance

    Entry Cost

    Ant (for comparison)

    2

    315

    80

    0.02

    10.19

    2.59

    110

    55.00

    Propulsion Systems (5)

    0

    0

    7

    1500

    Spider (for comparison)

    2

    290

    260

    0.02

    10.19

    9.14

    120

    60.00

    Precision Propulsion (6)

    10

    0

    7

    1750

    Twitch

    16

    290

    250

    0.09

    18.12

    15.62

    400

    25.00

    Precision Propulsion (6)

    8

    0

    7

    1600

    New Twitch

    16

    290

    275

    0.08

    20.39

    19.33

    230

    14.38

    Precision Propulsion (6)

    8

    0

    7

    920

    Puff (for comparison)

    20

    250

    120

    0.09

    22.65

    10.87

    150

    7.50

    Precision Propulsion (6)

    6

    0

    7

    2500

    Spark

    20

    320

    270

    0.1

    20.39

    17.20

    240

    12.00

    Propulsion Systems (5)

    3

    0

    7

    2800

    New Spark

    20

    320

    265

    0.13

    15.68

    12.99

    240

    12.00

    Propulsion Systems (5)

    3

    0

    7

    2800

    Place-Anywhere 7

    2

    240

    100

    0.03

    6.80

    2.83

    280

    140.00

    Advanced Flight Control(5)

    0

    0

    50

    4200

    New Place-Anywhere 7

    2

    240

    100

    0.02

    10.19

    4.25

    25

    12.50

    Advanced Flight Control(5)

    0

    0

    15

    800

    RV-105 RCS

    4

    240

    100

    0.05

    8.15

    3.40

    620

    155.00

    Advanced Flight Control(5)

    0

    0

    15

    3400

    New RV-105 RCS

    4

    240

    100

    0.04

    10.19

    4.25

    45

    11.25

    Advanced Flight Control(5)

    0

    0

    15

    1200

    Vernor

    12

    260

    140

    0.08

    15.29

    8.23

    1400

    116.67

    Specialized Control(6)

    0

    0

    50

    4200

    New Vernor

    12

    260

    140

    0.08

    15.29

    8.23

    150

    12.50

    Specialized Control(6)

    0

    0

    15

    1800

    And here’s the thinking behind these changes.

    Twitch & Spark:

    The twitch and spark are both relatively similar in size, use the same propellant, and the twitch unlocks later than the spark.  The twitch is a surface attached engine with a good gimbal range, but otherwise the Spark is just better in every way – TWR, cost/KN, and efficiency.  In fact, the Spark is so efficient that it outpaces many larger significantly larger engines, making clusters of them a better choice than using one of them, something we generally want to avoid as we think that both game balance and realism are better satisfied by having larger engines generally be slightly better than smaller ones, at the expense of not being as flexible in exactly how many of them you use.

    Therefore, the Twitch was made about half as costly, and its ASL ISP was increased to make it a better descent engine for probes on planets with an atmosphere, or as a Vernier.

    The Spark’s ASL ISP was lowered slightly, and its mass increased, to tilt it more toward being a Vac engine rather than just a perfect all-around engine that it was.  We’re aware that the community has been using this engine for a while and kept the changes as small as possible, but this engine stood out too much from its peers when you look at the numbers to not need to adjust it.

    RCS Engines:  

    The Place Anywhere 7, RV-105 RCS, and Vernor are all engines designed to steer your ship in space, making fine adjustments to orientation and course rather than providing raw power.   Also, RCS is a much more realistic way to adjust a large craft’s orientation rather than piling on more reaction wheels. But the cost of these engines, we felt was just too exorbitant, especially given their low efficiency & the fact that they are typically placed in symmetry, so their costs were reduced dramatically.

    The mass of the Place Anywhere 7 and RV-105 also made them a poor choice compared to the more powerful Vernor and were thus lowered.

    However, these are still engines, sensitive pieces of equipment, so the crash tolerances were set more in line with other engines.


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    On 4/18/2019 at 9:58 AM, weissel said:

    You can also mod (copy) in the old engine values into the newest version.  You may not play a vanilla 1.7 but you can continue using your career and ships with no surprises.  (See above on multiple installs, too.)

    A module manager patch to restore the pre-1.7 values would also be easy to create and distribute via CKAN

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    On ‎4‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 6:58 PM, weissel said:

    Or you can convert to 1.7 and adapt.  Your in-game crafts will not be affected: their parts and part stats are stored in the savegame. The new engine stats will only affect new craft (launch pad or runway or similarly spawning into the world --- just being on rails does not put them out of the world).

    That's great news for all future updates as well. Thanks for highlighting this. 

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    Really like the twitch changes. It's always felt weird to not have any sort of vaguely-efficient vernier besides the thud, which is really big.

    Also, looks like the twitch just got its vacuum and especially ASL TWR pushed past the spark. Seems the niche the spark had occupied will now shift over to the twitch, and the spark will mostly be relegated to vacuum roles.

    Edited by RocketSquid
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