Tweeker

The Kerbal X is actually a pretty decent craft, It just needs 2 things, more fuel in the lower stages, and a smaller engine on the lander. I banged one out, it has about 8,000 m/s delta-v work great for Mun landings, for Minus you need to lower the thrust limiter on the 3 landing engines to 33. I also added reaction wheels and RCS. https://kerbalx.com/Tweeker/Kerbal-XL

I have used them extensively, but like most mod packs, there are part I use and parts I don't so the parts tabs become cluttered. I stripped the mod pack down, but the fact remains, these could stand to be added to stock

+1

I thought about it, and built a few probes, and from my experience, They are still the heaviest {Fuel excluded} part you will put on a small probe, If you Build a small probe consisting of: 1) an HCES or OCTO core, 2) a z-100 battery. 3) an OX-Sat solar panel, 4) an Oscar-B fuel tank. 5) An Ant engine 6) A thermometer, seismometer, a barometer, and a Gravioli detector, 7) Communotron 16 8) 3 ea LT-05 Micro Landing Struts. 3 struts are the least you are going to use, and the struts weight .045 for 3. this is more than any other part , except the probe core. The struts are the most expensive parts in terms of delta-v cost, and they are oversized in this application. You are actually better off using Cubic Octagonal Struts as landing legs. I actually use the LT-05 struts on my manned landers,

It actual should be very simple to code, this is an older example of the .cfg, but PART { name = fuelTank_long module = Part author = NovaSilisko mesh = model.mu scale = 0.1 node_stack_top = 0.0, 15, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -15.1, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0 node_attach = 5.01, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1 TechRequired = fuelSystems entryCost = 4800 cost = 800 category = FuelTank subcategory = 0 title = FL-T800 Fuel Tank manufacturer = Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spacecraft Parts Co description = A stretched variant of the FL-T400, the FL-T800 holds twice the fuel in a slightly stronger container. The black stripes along the side make the rocket go faster, our engineers tell us. attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0 mass = 0.5 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.3 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 6 breakingForce = 50 breakingTorque = 50 maxTemp = 2000 // = 2900 bulkheadProfiles = size1, srf RESOURCE { name = LiquidFuel amount = 360 maxAmount = 360 } RESOURCE { name = Oxidizer amount = 440 maxAmount = 440 } } The Bold red part of the .config that effects how much, and what kind of fuel is loaded in the tank. All the parts could have this changed to be switchable between 3 or 4 different setups in the VAB, just as the paint scheme is changed now. It would be very low-level programming, mostly defining the capacity of each tank/part in LFO, rocket fuel, monoprop, etc.

The OMS engine in KSP is all goofed up, It is based on the AJ10-190 Engine, but it gets a few things wrong. Most importantly here is that it is a bi-propellant hypergolic engine, not Monopropellant. Its ISP should be much higher, 315. And its thrust should actuall be lower. You mentioned having a TWR of .08, the Orbiter weighs about 240,000 at launch and 178,000 empty. Each OMS engine is 6,000 Lbf, and if you suppose an on orbit mass of 200,000 lbs your TWR is .06. The engine could stand to be a little bigger, but shouldn't be much bigger than a kerbal The pods you show above, from the shuttle are actually the AJ10-137 OMS engine, the aft RCS thrusters, and about 25,000 pounds of Fuel. What we actually need is for the Puff to be Bi-propellant, with a better ISP, and maybe a fuelled pod to stick on the sides of Shuttles, or for there to be a variant of the engine plate with OMS pods.

What I would like to see is formless instruments, for example you have a science bay or probe core as a part, when you load instrument, batteries, reaction wheels, ETC instead of placing physical parts on the craft in the VAB you load the module into the core, or bay. The bay then get heavier, and gain additional proprties, such as more torque, electric charge, ETC, and looses capacity as it is filled up.

What exactly are you having trouble with? You should be able to get more money by doing contracts, click on the mission control building, #10 in the map below.

Now that we have proper .625 SRBs the rest of the .0625 parts need a little attention, The Oscar-b is a nice fuel tank, but you have to stack up far too many. It would be nice to have 2X, 4X and 8X length versions. The TK-38 radial decoupler is nice, but when attaching more than 4 of them on a .625 core, such as 8 mites around a stack of Oscar-b tanks, they tend to get caught on the adjacent tanks when decoupling. So it would be nice to have a 1/2 or 1/3 width coupler So you end up dragging the booster you just jettisoned. A set of landing legs and a solar panel sized to mount radially on a .625 core would be nice as well.

It all It all depends on which version of the Nerva you compare it to.

Yes, the vector is about 2-2.5X over thrust, and needs to be about 1.875m a size that did not exist when the vector was split off from the mammoth. Reducing the amount of fuel jives with the fact that hydrogen is less dense than kerosene, I find about 30% fuel to be about right. The other problem is the way the thrust tapers on the SRBs. it needs to start off high, about 2,800 and taper off to 1,800 before dropping out. SRB thrust currently starts off at ~2,950 and taper up to ~3,300 meaning you need more thrust from the vectors to counteract their torque.

Exactly, In KSP you get a limited amount of science from situations, recover a craft that survived a flight 6 science, Sub-orbital flight 8 science, return from the surface of the Mun? 35 science. You can unlock a substantial portion of the tech tree with out ever "doing" any science.

While I could stand a more powerful Mite, it's thrust is about inline with with many kick motors. It's ISP could be raise to emphasis it's role, the zefiro upper stage on the Vega for example has an ISP of 295, and the altair has an ISP of 289. The shrimp however could stand to have alot more thrust, the castor motors have 745 KN of thrust, {@ 1 meter diameter } As a rule of thumb I find motors should scale to 20% of real world thrust in KSP, so ~150 Kn

The RD-0410 is a much smaller engine than the NERVA, having only about 20-25% of the thrust of the NERVA.

I'm more concerned about what they might add down line, Phone home analytics, TOS changes etc.

Yes, it should change. "Science" should be something you do as a mission goal. Period. It should have zero effect on unlocking new parts. No amount of space rocks, temperature readings, ETC will ever allow NASA to develop new rocket engines. Instead tech tree "points" should be earned based on things like: X amount of fuel burned, -----simulates testing of engines on test stands, or continuous improvement thru data monitoring of live flights. mission elapsed time. -------See above, continuous improvement thru data monitoring of live flights. Manned flight time (with life support) ----- gaining more experience at supporting Kerbal in space allows longer flights, allows more hours in space, alllows more experience.

Into orbit yes, Realistic no. The vector is still wildly overpowered, You could probably get by with only 1 vector.

I am so, so, so happy they finally got around to adding proper large SRBs. My fix for the Flea would have been to delete it, and replace it with the Shrimp. ---Done. I have long used a flea tweeked to .0625 diameter and stretched 4x, giving it about the same volume, but making it more useful as a strap-on booster. The shrimp is even better, having much less empty weight. I would like to see a higher thrust, so it is demonstrably better than the .0625 LF engines thrustwise, Maybe 50? The Clydesdale is great, I have long held that there should be an SRB scaled to shuttle use, the fuel capacity is almost exactly what I came up with when I was experimenting with making a properly sized SRB, I think I had 15,000 LF. The thrust should have been al little lower, maybe 2500 to 2750, but it is still a great engine, and long overdue.

That would be alot more in-line with reality, the RS-25 is not a heavy lift engine, as it is in KSP. It is a sustainer, with lower thrust and ISP at SL and increasing thrust and ISP in VAC, on the Shuttle and SLS the RS-25s supply only about 15% -20% of the lift-off thrust, In KSP it is 60-70%

Genius!

Some parts are about where they should be, I think 18-20% of real world thrust works well. the Mainsail/Mammoth for example, are almost dead on this. The Twin Boar, for example needs to be about + 50% thrust to put it inline with the proposed Pyrios booster, (2X F-1s) or double the Mainsail/Mammoth. Others like the Wolfhound, are extremely OP, It has 4X the thrust of the real-world version, (375.00 KN in KSP vs 97KN Real-world). So you have one engine, the Kickback that is 5.5% of real world thrust, and another, the Wolfhound that is 384% of real world thrust.

The problem with the Idea of RS-68s or RS-25E engines is that the vector is already ridiculously OP. That needs to be fixed before other engines are added at this same scale. It's thrust should be much close to 450 KN, about 30% of the Mainsail/Mammoth, and it should be 1.875M, not 1.25M An RS-68 should be about the same size, but be 700KN in thrust.

Yeah, that's not a problem now at all, *cough* vector *cough* wolfhound *cough* Seriously, alot of people throw out "gamey" engine tuning as desireable but over look the fact that the "gamey" engine tuning we have now nerfs several engines, and gives their real-world niches to other engines that are buffed. A good scale for KSP engines. would be 18-20% of real -world thrust, The mainsail/mammoth is dead on this scale.

It is not only SRB, there are several liquid fuel engines that are out of balance, of the top of my head, all these engines need atleast a 20% thrust adjustment: Twin Boar NERV Mastodon Bobcat Cheetah Skiff Mammoth Vector Puff Rhino Wolfhound There is only one SRB on that list.

I'll add one more to the pile, Engines should generate a shroud above the engine when it overhangs the tank above it, usefully for building clusters, and when the engine bell is larger than the tank above it.