Ramjets and scramjets; and special material layers.

[Angeltxilon]

Ramjets and scramjets; and special material layers.

Today I have several suggestions to improve several parts of game related with flight in atmosphere. These suggestions are derived for several problems that I saw.

1. Ramjet intakes (ram air intake and structural intake) are relatively unrealistic (taking in count that all the parts of game has a moderate realism).

2. Is very difficult obtain high hypersonic and ultrasonic* aircrafts, due that air intakes of any type and the most part of winglets and wings are destroyed over speeds of 1300 m/s.

 

To these problems I suggest several new parts and fixes:

1. Make ramjet intakes a little more realistic, this mean make these to only work at supersonic speeds, speeds over 340 or 400 m/s.

2. Add scramjet intakes, special new intakes able to support very big quantities of intake air. Also, these intakes only would work at high supesonic speeds, over 500-600 m/s.

3. Add the possibility of add special material layers to all the vehicle, like a extra option or a thing like "undefined size part".
These layers would have a variable price based in the size of surrounded vehicle or specific part.
For now I suggest these possibilities:
- Titanium (Laythanium in ksp?): it would make to the vehicle more resistant to pressure and pressure changes, and a little more to heat; with big heat mounts can not protect to the vehicle or part to pressure and overheat. 
- Ceramics: it would make to the vehicle more resistant to heat and friction (except to engine parts), this mean the possibility of obtain durable and manageable hypersonic aircrafts, but this type of layer is weak to big pressure changes and impact, and can be removed by these conditions.

 

Thanks for read.

_______________________

* Ultrasonic speeds are the same than atmospheric reentry speed, so a ultrasonic aircraft is a very advanced aircraft capable to fly at these extreme speeds.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Angeltxilon

[CaptainTurbomuffin]

Destroyed over 900?! Stop complaining about the game if you are playing on ultra-difficulities. At 100% re-entry heat, My planes never explode below 1300m/s.

One more thing: if you suggest scramjets/ramjets, engines, 1300-400 is strictly the maximum with the current jets If you want to reach it, use RAPIERs, and a lot of them. The more TWR the better. Of course, I'm not sure if you want engines or only intakes or only to change the current intakes. But I guess you know this... Anyway, I guess more types of jet engines are necessary. It's just not strategic enough to have a  tier1 jet < tier2 jet< tier3 jet<tier4 jet. I guess in a balanced game, each unit is equal, but they have their advantages over each other...

And that's why some high-speed op aircraft stuffs should be significantly nerfed during low altitudes and speeds. It would even be more realistic. So that one is a good suggestion with the intakes. The thing I didn't get is why a ramjet intake should have much air? After 1.0, we no longer need more than one inake per engine. The more-air the better system was completely scrapped. Now, flame-out depends on your engines' parameters only. A super-high capacity ram air intake would only cause more drag. But anyway, I guess, to be more realistic and balanced again, the lower speed limit should be applied to the engines, not the intakes. But anyway, we have dozens of identical air intakes. I wonder when will squad repurpose this diversity as well. I'll go and suggest it right away.

And for plating... That would be great, but couldn't wotk with the current system. Maybe with procedural wings-something that should be stock.

Edited April 4, 2016 by CaptainTurbomuffin

[SchweinAero]

11 hours ago, Angeltxilon said:

Why 300 m/s and not 1000 m/s, that is the real supersonic speed (mach 1)?
Because physics of the game has different values than real world, 3000 m/s is the reentry speed of ksp while in real world is only mach 4-5.

Slight correction: mach 1 in Earth's atmosphere is fairly close to 300 m/s. Kerbin air acts a lot like Earth air, it's just that the planet is smaller (and aerodynamic heating is buffed to compensate).

Still, Rapiers can get closer to the local orbital velocity than any working real-world jet engine. This somewhat undermines the need for more advanced (sc)ramjets.

[Blaarkies]

19 hours ago, Angeltxilon said:

2. Is very difficult obtain hypersonic and ultrasonic aircrafts, due that air intakes of any type and the most part of winglets and wings are destroyed over speeds of 900 m/s.

Sorry but what is "ultrasonic aircrafts" :
-Subsonic 0-340ms
-Supersonic 340-1700ms
-Hypersonic +1700ms (mach 5)
 

19 hours ago, Angeltxilon said:

1. Make ramjet intakes a little more realistic, this mean make these to only work at supersonic speeds, speeds over 300 m/s.
Why 300 m/s and not 1000 m/s, that is the real supersonic speed (mach 1)?
Because physics of the game has different values than real world, 3000 m/s is the reentry speed of ksp while in real world is only mach 4-5.

Mach 1 = 340ms(decreases to 294.9m/s at about 60km altitude)

I am not attacking you, I like these ideas but I hate misinformation.
On topic, those heat restive surfaces would be awesome(as an end game tech). If they add mass but also boosts the part's heat tolerance, we could build spaceplanes out of low-tier parts at the end of career.

The engines is tricky, since the RAPIER can already easily do 1600ms on air breathing...that is already 71% orbital speed. Compare that to the SKYLON's projected speed of Mach 5.4@26km=1611ms, against LEO orbital speed 7800m/s : that is 21%

My point is, the RAPIER is on par with the higher estimates of what a SCRAMJET can theoretically do...at least for the kerbal universe. So it might become difficult to add such a engine, without making other engines seem utterly useless

[KerikBalm]

21 hours ago, Angeltxilon said:

2. Is very difficult obtain hypersonic and ultrasonic aircrafts, due that air intakes of any type and the most part of winglets and wings are destroyed over speeds of 900 m/s.

Something must be wrong with your flight profile, I have no problem getting craft over 1300 m/s.

I play with heat at 100%, did you jack it up to 120% or something?

Edited April 5, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Angeltxilon]

I did not note that KSP 1.0.5 the heat generated by friction with the atmosphere was lower (I was using a old version).

Okay, data edited.

[Angeltxilon]

7 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

Sorry but what is "ultrasonic aircrafts" :

-Subsonic 0-340ms
-Supersonic 340-1700ms
-Hypersonic +1700ms (mach 5)

You forget high hypersonic (mach 10).

Ultasonic speed is the same than "atmospheric reentry speed".

A ultrasonic aircraft is a hypothetical aircraft capable to obtain speeds over mach 25 (8500 m/s).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_speed#Classification_of_Mach_regimes

[GreeningGalaxy]

On 4/4/2016 at 5:04 AM, Angeltxilon said:

2. Is very difficult obtain high hypersonic and ultrasonic* aircrafts, due that air intakes of any type and the most part of winglets and wings are destroyed over speeds of 1300 m/s.

Do you think it's easy to obtain hypersonic aircraft in real life? So far, the only airbreathing aircraft to manage Mach 5+ have been small unpiloted test vehicles, which have only stayed at those speeds for a few moments. There's a reason we use rockets for flying into space - no other engine works particularly well when the surrounding air is hotter than the exhaust flame. 

You are right that 1300 m/s is a little slow to have your vehicle burning up, since real (mostly rocket-powered) craft have managed speeds like that in the upper atmosphere before and survived to do it again, but that's just because Kerbin's small size would make normal reentries completely non-fiery if realistic heating were used. Yes, it's an imperfect solution to say the least, but you have to make tradeoffs whenever you sacrifice realism for gameplay.

If you want to argue that these things should be changed to improve the game, fine, but it's not as straightforward as you seem to be making it out to be.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

All I wanted was some new mach 3.5 capable jet engines..... not more nerfs

 

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