Worst engine in KSP

[THX1138]

12 hours ago, Spartwo said:

The poodle, so bad I haven't given it a second chance.

I think it's the most fuel-efficient LFO engine. I use it often enough.

[Netherman555]

13 hours ago, Jetski said:

Puff mono engine

Yep.

[Red Iron Crown]

Goliath would get my vote. We *finally* get a 2.5m airbreather and it's pretty much useless for going to space or any mission the game asks you to do. 

[Sereneti]

i dont know why the flea should be a bad engine: 
the flea is a realy good engine for jato boosting (space)planes...

short duration of trust, cheap. and lighter.

i think the LVT-30 engine is the worst:

no vectoring, lower ISP.

only "bruthe force" - but if i want this i can use SRBs...

and so on...

[cantab]

Least useful, Flea. Apart from the first launch in a career, what are you going to do with it? It's too short and fat to look right as a booster on 1.25m rockets and doesn't perform well in that role either. It lacks the specific impulse to be an upper stage. I suppose it has a limited niche as a giant sepratron on huge boosters, or as a RATO engine as shown above. I'd like to see it rebalanced to be oriented as an upper stage SRB, with lower thrust and good vacuum efficiency, similar to the STAR motors in real life. Something that's a cheap way to push to orbit when you aren't picky about the exact apo and peri, or to kick-start an ejection burn on a probe. But still capable of useful thrust on the ground too.

Biggest letdown, Kickback. Considering it's supposed to be based on the most powerful rocket engine ever, period, the Kickback is pathetically small and wimpy. I guess it's stuck as it is, but I think the game should add a 2.5m SRB.

[storm_soldier2377]

There's no worst engine for me, just a couple of ones that I find limited uses for.

 

• The Reliant iis quickly rendered obsolete obsolete by the swivel. Sure it is slightly more powerful but it does not have the thrust vectoring that's needed for a gravity turn. Using the thrust vectoring engine works out cheaper than relying on winglets.
• The Aerospike is a jack of all trades but ends up being master of none. It's got decent ISP on atmosphere and vacuum, but in neither situation is it the best. I only use it in early career spaceplanes and Duna landers.
• The Puff finds no uses for me because I can't think of a situation where I only rely on monopropellant as fuel.
• The Flea is quickly rendered obsolete by other SRBs, yet I do use it on occasion for the lightest of launches.
• The Vector's power is between that of a Skipper and a Mainsail, yet it is more expensive than the latter. It doesn't have much use outside of building shuttles. It may be useful for an Eve ascender as one can put them on decouplers unlike Mammoths, but I haven't gotten to that yet.

[Kerbinchaser]

I just think that ion engines are not that great. 

[Astrofox]

12 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

There is no worst engine. Just engine for different jobs.

Exactly. I use all engines in KSP, from the least amount of thrust to the most powerful.

I especially encourage you to put an Ant/Spider on missions that involve accuracy (i.e. those satellite contract missions) because of the ability to lower the thrust of each.

The Thud engines may be expensive, but they have such an amazing gimbal range, as well as making your launch vehicles look awesome when used on first stages (and slightly clipped in a bit).

However, as bad as the Flea may be (hey, that rhymed), it is fairly useful for those missions that just need a small boost of speed.

 

I can see the Seperatron as being the most useless in-game, as they're only really used for the tiniest of boosts (high TWR makes them highly inaccurate for orbital maneuvers) and getting large boosters away from your rocket on ascent. Also, for saving Kerbs from faulty plane flights (if there's a parachute involved, of course) and launches that don't use the Large LES.

 

The LES is actually kind of amazing, as you can get craft to insane altitudes if you make an entire staged rocket from them. Plus, they're virtually indestructible, and can survive a full on dive 120 m/s head first into the ground.

[Warzouz]

15 hours ago, Jetski said:

Puff mono engine

Yes, but this engine is very useful when you want to build RCS only ships like medium rang tugs. You gain efficiency by not using several engine types and fuel.

I find the Reliant not useful, it's ISP is too low.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Warzouz

[How to: KSP]

15 hours ago, Spartwo said:

The poodle, so bad I haven't given it a second chance.

I use it sometimes. It ain't that bad got nice efficiency and thrust in vacuam

[cantab]

5 minutes ago, Astrofox said:

I can see the Seperatron as being the most useless in-game, as they're only really used for the tiniest of boosts (high TWR makes them highly inaccurate for orbital maneuvers) and getting large boosters away from your rocket on ascent.

As an engine, yes, the Sepratron is kind of rubbish. Although I did use three on my recent micro-launcher to get it going off the pad. But as a separation motor, it's nigh-essential.

[Jetski]

6 minutes ago, Warzouz said:

Yes, but this engine is very useful when you want to build RCS only ships like medium rang tugs. You gain efficiency by not using several engine types and fuel.

I find the Reliant not useful, it's ISP is too low.

With the new ability to set RCS "fore by throttle" puff is pretty much obsolete unless you are doing this with a large ship. 

[Warzouz]

Just now, Jetski said:

With the new ability to set RCS "fore by throttle" puff is pretty much obsolete unless you are doing this with a large ship. 

Ah, I didn't know that. But RCS packs are very weak.

[Gman_builder]

1 hour ago, Lo Var Lachland said:

I just think that ion engines are not that great. 

I think Ion engines have low thrust but are extremely useful if you want to get your spacecraft up to very, very high speeds. I escaped the solar system on a single Ion engine. My probe was going 21,000 m/s.

[Sereneti]

Just now, Gman_builder said:

I think Ion engines have low thrust but are extremely useful if you want to get your spacecraft up to very, very high speeds. I escaped the solar system on a single Ion engine. My probe was going 21,000 m/s.

Ion engines : 
+light
+smal volume
+High DV/Volume
+High DV/mass

-Need a lot of energy
-Low trust

the low trust make this engine perfekt for perfet corrective-steerings.

if you want to accelerate you vessel about 0,1m/s , the ion-engine fits perfekt...

---

but i havnt found a use for the LV-T30 o.O

----

and yes, the puff are obsolvet since the RCS update.

[cantab]

The Reliant's use is to teach you the importance of thrust vectoring

[moogoob]

1 hour ago, cantab said:

The Reliant's use is to teach you the importance of thrust vectoring

Heh. Yeah, that one and the Goliath (Well, air-breathing engines in general, but that one especially) are the only engines I don't use all that often.

[DualDesertEagle]

Since I just recently found a good use for the Spark after at first I thought "What the hell are those tiny engines good for?" I'm gonna say I'll probably also find a purpose for both the ant and spider sooner or later. Other than that I've used pretty much every engine in the game for something. Sometimes I still even use the flea when I just need to accelerate quickly.

[TwinKerbal]

8 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

Same here, small oscar tanks on decouplers infront of probe...drop them as you burn. 0.6t probes that easily get to Jool is awesome(Ant has even more Isp than spark)

Did not know this. I gotta try this myself. 

[Rune]

6 hours ago, Jetski said:

With the new ability to set RCS "fore by throttle" puff is pretty much obsolete unless you are doing this with a large ship. 

The new what to do what?

 

Rune. You have me confused there...

[cantab]

Right click the RCS port, choose Show Actuation Toggles, then one of the options is "Fore by Throttle" which does what it says - makes the RCS port act like an engine, by firing forwards when you throttle up. Not sure if it can be turned on in flight or needs to be set up in the VAB.

[Norcalplanner]

22 minutes ago, cantab said:

Right click the RCS port, choose Show Actuation Toggles, then one of the options is "Fore by Throttle" which does what it says - makes the RCS port act like an engine, by firing forwards when you throttle up. Not sure if it can be turned on in flight or needs to be set up in the VAB.

You can also disable the ports for pitch, roll, and yaw, so they'll only be used for translation while docking. That way you can leave RCS on the whole time while docking, but still rely solely on reaction wheels for attitude changes.

[Kerbinchaser]

6 hours ago, Gman_builder said:

I think Ion engines have low thrust but are extremely useful if you want to get your spacecraft up to very, very high speeds. I escaped the solar system on a single Ion engine. My probe was going 21,000 m/s.

Hmm. Thanks for the help. 

[cantab]

The ion engine is like Marmite: You either love it or hate it. (I'm in the love it camp on both counts.)

[Robotengineer]

Unity (the game engine KSP runs on). It is horribly optimized for what KSP needs and is not open source, (unlike Unreal Engine 4), so the devs can't customize it. 

As far as in-game engines go, the poodle, just because it is ugly and has a horrible name.